Brief Description: Aft fuselage match hole drilling & J-Channels
This Morning I cleaned the shop. I have been working on the fuselage a couple of weeks now and the alum shavings and debris was getting pretty thick. I vacuumed all of the fabrication area, and moved the assembled aft fuselage into a better position with lots of room around it to work. I also put away most of the tools I have been using. I have to do that once in a while or I will not be able to find anything. I began cleco-ing every-other-hole in the aft fuse skins. I next cut all of the J-channels to size. These are attached to the skins on the inside and help make the fuse ridgid. There are six of these and each had to be cut to size and all of the ends trimmed. I next inserted the J-channels and lined them up to drill. After the J-channels were all drilled I continued to match drill all of the holes in the rest of the aft fuselage. You leave the front hole in the F-706 bulkhead alone, because they will be match drilled with the center section, when they are connected to each other. Now that all of the drilling is done, I have to take it all apart again and deburr and dimple the skins and bulkheads. I will also use a soldering iron to remove the blue plastic along the rivet lines, like I did on the wings.
The J-channels attached to the inside skins
The aft fuselage is all match drilled and ready for disassembly and dimple-ing
I'm glad I have this pneumatic cleco tool (left). It is much better than the hand held version (right)
