Brief Description: Start Fuel Tank Build with Ribs and Stiffeners
Before I started on the fuel tank I reviewed the Van's video on YouTube for the (not kidding here) 7th or 8th time. I also spent about an hour last night reading through the plans to understand what lies ahead. I've been looking forward to doing the fuel tanks more than any other section since the wing kit arrived.
I've decided to build the LH tank first, so I'm only doing those parts right now. I spent half of today's time just on the flanges. Cleaned all of the ribs with acetone, then using a medium sized square made sure every flange was going to lie flat on the skin. To adjust the flanges I used a Knipex pliers instead of the big duckbill because there were a lot of small "bumps" in the flanges that I assume were caused by the hydroforming process.
I spent a lot of time fluting each rib. The Van's video makes the point that it's less important to flute so the rib lies flat than it is to have the holes all in a straight line. To that end I approached fluting a bit differently using a straight edge to check hole alignment and fluting as required to straighten them.
Laid out and drilled a 3/4 inch hole in the upper aft portion of the inboard rib for a fuel line flange and matched drilled the rivet holes.
Cut the stiffeners from stock and trimmed off the excess material. I ran out of daylight so I'll pick up the final profiling and deburring of the stiffeners tomorrow.
Comparison of before and after fluting
Inboard aft rib upper aft hole drilled for VA-141 flange
Stiffeners rough cut waiting for final profiling and deburring
