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Left Wing Skinning

Bottom skin riveting

Started getting the bottom skin riveted on.  Steve came over to help, it’s much easier to do with 2 people.  There are a few places you need to be a contorsionist to get to.  We tied up the bottom end of the bottom skin to the rafters, you’ve got to be careful not to kink the .025 skin at this point.  We started at the spar and worked from the center out, about 3 rivets down at a time.  We would lower the skin from the rafters as we worked down.  There were a few rivets we bucked using the long bucking bar taped to a stick, using short bursts from the rivet gun.  Luckily the AN 3 rivets don’t need much to set…..and you could hear the tone change as the skin came tight.

It took 2 nights, working a few hours each to get the bottom skin completely on.  I am squeezing the remaining platenuts around the main fuel tank.  

The 032 skin at the root end still needs to be finished, but I’ve got some plumbing to do before i close it up and take the wing out of the jig.  It’s been a journey to get to this point, looking forward to getting it out of the jig and doing it all over again!

 

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