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.