Brief Description: Preparing to rivet top skins on left wing
Today was a long day in the shop. I began by mounting the fuel tank to the main spar and joint plate on the leading edge assembly. Once mounted I checked the screw attachments and overall fit. I found a less than perfect fit on the bottom skin at the wing root extending outboard for about 12 inches. This is where the spar is the thickest and it fits very snugly against the tank baffle. I had to remove the tank and trim a little excess proseal where it had oozed out between the skin and baffle. This seemed to do the trick and the second try resulted in a good fit.
Frankly, I was a little worried about whether all the Z brackets and tank screw attach points would line up perfectly. There is absolutely no play in the spar screw holes for the Z brackets so the assembly has to be perfect. Following the plans carefully when constructing the tank paid off. The tank fits fine.
Once the tank was in place, I clecoed the top skins on the wing skeleton with the wing walk doubler. I then dropped a couple plumb lines on the root and wing tip and checked for twist. Thankfully, the wing is perfectly straight at this point. Next step was to touch up all the dimples with a little deburring tool purchased from Cleaveland at the beginning of the project. It's a small deburring cutter that can be inserted in a low RPM electric screwdriver. I have found that gently touching up the dimples before riveting results in a little nicer finish.
Final task for the day was to insert (with tape) the appropriate rivets into the skins. The tape both holds the rivet in place and protects the skin a bit when riveting. The assembly is ready to rivet as soon as my new back riveting tools arrive (decided to back rivet the top skins).
