Scrape, Peal, Smooth, Create Craters - Repeat

A late start today has dashed all hope of working on only the right wing skins tomorrow. That said, at least most of the left wing skins remaining will offer good access for the C-frame so it should go faster. The day was spent scraping the the edges of the left wing's skins with a file to smooth out small shear marks ( so far the skins have had rather small shear marks), then pealing off the tenacious blue protective film, followed by smoothing all the edges with the 1 inch Scotch-brite wheel, then beating the skin into submission with the C-frame and creating craters for flush rivets in the process … dimple by hand if necessary any holes where the C-frame couldn’t reach and repeat the process.

Using a piece of PVC pipe to peal the blue film off the skins is not a piece of cake but it makes a tough chore a lot easier. Once the blue film is on the PVC pipe getting it off requires an effort as well.

                 Using a large PVC pipe to help peal the tenacious blue film off the left wing’s inboard bottom skin.

The inboard wing skins along with the doubler skins for the wing walk areas come from Van’s pre-dimpled above and bellow the leading edge. However, I discovered during a test fit that the flush rivets I’m using sit a little proud. Those following the Blog may remember I had an issue early on where the original dimple dies I had purchased did the same thing with the Gesipa rivets I’m using for the RV-12 project. I redimpled those holes using the Avery dimple dies I’ve been using all along and now have a good flush fit.

                        Pre-dimpled leading edge rivets holes from Vans before re-dimpling with the Avery dies
                        to obtain a flush fit for the Gespia flush rivets being used on the RV-12 project.

                            Dimpling the wing walk doubler skin with the C-frame. The pre-dimpled holes from the
                            factory mentioned above are in the row above and bellow the curve for the leading edge.

                             Using the hand rivet puller to dimple one of the holes in the leading edge of the left
                             wing’s center bottom skin where it was best not to use the C-frame.