Brief Description: Prepared Tank Rear Baffle and Skin
While the proseal was curing on the latest tank rib, I went about preparing the rear tank baffle and matching tank skin for assembly. Roughly 300 dimples to hand squeeze. Again, I used my tank dimple die set. There are differing views on whether you should 1) counter sink the tank skin and do not dimple the baffle; or 2) dimple both the tank skin and baffle. The claims were that the baffle was very difficult to assemble to the skin if there were 150ish dimples in each part to fit together. I was able to assemble the dimpled baffle to the skin with no problem. We'll see if that is the case once there's proseal everywhere. The rear baffle fit perfectly in assembly. Finally, I cut and slotted 36 wood clamps using 1x2s, 4 inches long with a partial double pass on the band saw blade to slightly widen the saw kerf to 1/16 wide. Any wider and it doesn't clamp very well. Those will be placed every couple inches on the rear baffle to squeeze it very tightly to the skin after riveting to let the proseal setup effectively. Also, it squeezes out every last bit of excess proseal so there are no slight bulges in the assembed baffle/skin. The baffle straddles the main spar when you mount the tank to the wing. I mounted it back on the wing again to check how the tank skin and leading edge skin matched up at the curve of the leading edge. Originally there was a slight mismatch on skin height where the tank skin and leading edge skin touched each other. It now fits perfectly since the nearest tank rib is permanently riveted to the skin, vs just being clecoed together the 1st time. Maybe its the order of how I clecoed the tank back onto the wing. I'll try to remember that order when I am screwing in the 72 screws that hold the tank onto the wing.
