1.8 Hours -
I was hoping that the time between riveting the top skins and preparing to rivet the bottom skins would be a little longer, but the time has come. Today, I started the final prep of the bottom skins.
Since the inboard skins go on first, I started by removing vinyl strips from those skins. As with the top skins, I’m removing vinyl along the rivet lines only. I’ll prime the rivet lines on the inside of the skin, then remove all of the vinyl from that side before riveting.
A picture of me removing blue vinyl from the bottom skins...I feel like I've done this before!
After “de-bluing” both bottom inboard skins, I deburred the left skin (edges and holes). Then, I hand countersunk the nutplate attach holes around the access holes for some “oops” rivets. Although I’m prepping the access areas now, I won’t attach the nutplates until after the skins are on the wings. If the nutplates were put in place now, I’m afraid they would wreak havoc on my arms as I reach into the wing to buck rivets. Access for riveting the nutplates later will be easy anyways.
Finally, I set up my squeezer with a #40 dimple die set and started to dimple any holes in the skin that the squeezer could reach. I made it through most of the squeezable holes in this skin before deciding to call it a night.
I started dimpling the left inboard skin and then called it a day.
