Thursday, April 17, 2014

A Day Of Nutplates

The DOG Aviation production facility has been experiencing some wild temperature swings … just a couple of days ago we were in the high 70’s (first time this year) then the next morning, it was snowing. The morning tempratures were in the teens and a light snow continued the entire day and of course, it was cold in the shop once again … which was truly demoralizing after actually being comfortable in the shop for a change. Will this winter ever end? Almost seems like reducing the global carbon footprint is sending us into another Ice Age.

Even though there have not been many posts lately, quite a few little tasks have been completed … none of which truly noteworthy. Decided to give the wiring a little more thought before continuing on ... so in the meanwhile, wanted to continue making forward progress by preparing parts that will be needed in the near future. There are a couple of parts that require some assembly plus the instillation of lots of nutplates.

The F-00026-L&R instrument stack angles receive 7 nutplates each and the F-1201Q-L&R battery mount angles receive one nutplate each.
Using the pneumatic squeezer to rivet nutplates onto the F-00026 instrument stack angles.
Nutplates riveted onto both F-00026 instrument stack angles … note there are two nutplates on each stack angle which are not installed at this time.

The next item worked on today was the F-1202H- L&R canopy ribs. In addition to receiving 10 nutplates each, they also receive the F-1202M-L&R canopy attach doublers and the F-1202Y-L&R canopy strut attach angles (which are builder fabricated parts completed last fall).
F-1202M canopy attach doublers and F-1202Y canopy strut attach angles attached with Clecos onto the F-1202H canopy ribs. Ready for installing the nutplates.
Using the pneumatic rivet squeezer to rivet nutplates onto the flanges of the F-1202H canopy rib. Because of the painted surfaces, a small piece of riveting tape was placed over the rivets to prevent the paint from becoming marred by the squeezer.