Brief Description: Prepared tank skin for assembly
Finally, after finishing a major remodeling job at our condo in Daytona Beach Shores, and recovering from two self inflicted injuries to my ankle and little finger ( 8 stitches each) I can get back to building the RV-6A. I left off with disassembling the fuel tank after match drilling. Now its time to dimple the tank and ribs. I bought a special fuel tank dimple die set which sets a slightly deeper dimple to allow for buildup of proseal under the rivet head when bucking those rivets. I used the electric soldering iron to melt lines in the plastic protective coating on the skins to expose the riveting lines. I lightly dragged it in a rough line on each side of the match drilled holes. It peels off soooo nice and easy. On to the dimple task. The 4 lb sledge is slight overkill but it worked fine and I didn't need to smack the die set very hard to get good dimples. I had already dimpled the tank ribs with a regular dimple die set so after doing the tank skin, I used the hand squeezer and the fuel tank dimple die set to re dimple the ribs. Now, the matching dimples of the skin and ribs nest inside each other very nicely. I did manage to mistakenly dimple one hole on the skin that matches up to the rear tank baffle. Plans call for countersinking the holes in the skin for the rear baffle. That supposedly makes it easier to assemble the rear baffle later, having no dimples to get in your way. Rather than pound out the one dimple in the skin, I will just dimple one hole in the rear baffle to match up with my mistake. Countersinking all the other skin holes for the rear baffle, though.
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Peeled away plastic along rivet lines using soldering iron heat.
Could not reach one hole at top of curve. Will use pull rivet dimple die set.
