February 5, 2006
I didn't get as far as I would have liked yesterday. I was on the phone half the day with work. Oh well. We'll see how much I get done today. I only have a few hours...gotta catch the SuperBowl :)
Deburred, edge finished and primed the skin.
I got a couple of e-mails asking me about the technique I gave for rivetting the stiffeners so I took a couple of better pictures this time. First, I clecoed the stiffeners on one side of the skin. I also inserted just the trailing edge rivet in those stiffeners. If you look closely, you'll see the tape covering the very last rivet on the bottom.
Then I just rivetted those trailing edge rivets. No, they're not anywhere near as squashed as they look in the picture, but I was sure to set them just a bit more than normal to prevent interference with the rivets on the other side of the skin. It's pretty tight in there when it's all closed up.
The I took out the clecoes, turned the skin over and rivetted all the stiffeners on the other side. You can see how easy it is to flex the skin away, allowing you to get your rivet gun in there to get THESE trailing edge rivets. This is a pain in the butt if the first side is already all completely stiffened.
Finally, I turn it back over and finish off the first side. Piece of cake.
I just like the way this looks for some reason. Very aviation like.
Bent the trailing edge. I HATE this part. It's not difficult, but it's totally goes against every instinct in your body to use big, heavy pine boards to forcebly smush something that you put all this time and effort into. It came out OK, I think, though. I used my hand seamer to ever so gently sharpen the bend a bit...just a teeny, tiny little squeeze. It's just very tough to do it with just the boards as the stiffeners will hit each other before you get a nice, sharp, bend. Maybe I over did it...I dunno. We'll see if I start developping cracks in a few years.