Wing spars & Univair ribs

[john-ranger]

I talked to Pete of Woodwing Specialty today. He just received some Russian spruce that is the very "best wood" he has seen in 32 years in working with wings. This may be old information to the forum, but he tells me that the cost of the finished spars (4) are about $3900. The completed wings (minus the fabric & paint) is approximately $8000. (not sure if that means he uses your old hardware or not). A complete wing set painted is about the same price as what Champion charges (I think about $17,000.). The item that intrigued me was about the Univair ribs. He tells me that you can use rivets in lieu of PK screws if you go with the Univair ribs. The reason he went on to say, is the fact that the Univair ribs are made of heavier material than was original spec'd. This is long winded, but I'm thinking of building a set of wings prior to any restoration/recovering job on my Champ. When the time comes, I have a major part of the job completed. *As a quick aside. Just finished my annual and everything checked out A OK.

[N3840E]

Sounds almost double the price from the other approved suppliers on spars. I know this man has a good reputation but I can live with the "cheap" spruce of Rainbow or Wag Aero.