Monday, July 4, 2016

Deburring/dimpling/countersink the wing - 5 hours

Well finally to the point where I can get working back on the wings. Earlier in the day I put in an order to aircraft spruce for some cherry rivets to attach the leading edge (also sent an email to vans support to ask about my options) but before I can get that I have a ton of work that can be done.

I need to remove the top skins and go to work deburring all holes, dimpling all ribs and the skins and countersinking the spar for all the dimples.

After I removed the top skins, I started in on deburring. Once I was done with the left wing/top. I dimpled the ribs. I then climbed in between the wings and kept deburring, and deburring and deburring.

Once I had my fill, I decided to do a little dimpling just to see how it was going to work out with dimpling the rear spar and the rib together. Not bad.



Then I moved onto some countersinking on the spar for all the #40 holes. I made absolute sure of what holes need a rivet to sit flush (the top row that connect the ribs but sit under the tank skin) all the holes that need to accept a 3/32 dimple for 0.025" skin (outboard skin) and those that need to accept a 3/32 dimple for 0.035" (inboard skin). After check, check and re-check I settled on a countersink diameter around 0.193" for the inboard skin dimples and then added a couple of clicks for the thicker inboard skins which ended up around 0.202" (give or take).

Countersinking works best and consistent if you go slow... Grrr.