Scarlett decided she was going to come visit while I worked on things. I have a terrible habit of distracting myself from my studies as my CFI Checkride approaches.
Regardless I worked on the false ribs beneath the wing tank, door joggles, and floorboards today.
Fit false ribs beneath wing tank.
Used dremel to trim back material on the false rib until it cleared wing tank.
Using index lines I had placed on the tank previously initially bonded false ribs to tank with Super Glue. Followed behind with a fillet of hysol.
I plan to sand these false ribs to match the contour of the adjacent ribs.
Door Frames Revisited: Used a straight edge to check how fabric will come off of the door frame joggle. The joggles protrude outwards. I gave the material some loving and massaged it in alignment with a straight edge running from the bottom tubes of the fuselage to the door joggle. I will need to revisit this step and make some adjustments to the door joggles. I also plan on splitting a 5/8” tube to provide a transition between the landing gear brackets and make that transition smooth.
Floor Board Tabs:
Earlier in the build I had made the decision to use tinnerman clips and sheet metal screws to attach the floorboards. There seems to be a great debate over the use of Rivnuts within the community. I would much rather use a machine screw over a sheet metal screw. I drilled holes that measure 0.200” A #6 Rivnut calls for a hole that is 0.189” from a #12 bit. I could not imagine 0.011” oversized hole could result in trouble especially if I were to have a secondary method of securing the Rivnut such as Hysol or the green sleeve locking compound used earlier in the build.
It seems that it is common place that the tabs on the floorboards are set below the tubing it is attached to. This results in bowing off the floorboards if they are snug.
I have been troubled by this situation for longer than I would like to admit and I have possibly developed a solution. If I were to use a Rivnut with a long grip and secure a stack of washers on top of the flange if it would be the least invasive way to bring the mounting surface up to flush. I would of course use an adhesive to protect against the dreaded spinning Rivnut.
I would appreciate anyone’s thoughts and feedback on this topic.