Longeron to bulkhead attach

[RyanB]

Hi Everyone

So we are finishing up the skeleton of the fuselage and have clamped all the longerons and stringers to the bulkheads. Now obviously before we can lay the skins on we will need to remove the clamps, so how do we now hold the longerons and stringers to the bulkheads whilst drilling the skins?

I thought of predrilling the longerons and stringers to the bulkheads and clecoing then on, but the clecos would also have to be removed before the skin laid on, so it won?t work either.

Should I attach an angle between the longeron and bulkheads and rivet it on?

Hope this makes sense, thank you

[fixnflyguy]

I know when I built mine, I drilled the bulkhead/stringer fastener holes,then installed small pop rivets in a few locations to hold the stringers in place and drilled up the skin panels, then removed the pop rivets and and back-drilled the skin at that location later on. The -4's and -6's took some forethought to build!

[sjhurlbut]

Every 10 or 20 rivets add another hole between 2 rivets. Debur it and countersink it. Rivet longeron in place using these holes to secure it then put the skin on. You can predrill the longeron and then drill from inside but its a very tight fit in there. I did it on my fastback RV8 which had the top skin not prepunched. Was fine until you get right down in tail cone.

[DeeCee 57]

clamping and using angles... riveting starts with the bottom rear skin to move forward, then the side skins follow. A couple of pictures showing the built at the end of my foto library, hope it is of help.

https://drive.google.com/drive/mobil...BjnALbl5jqrp3x

[RyanB]

Guys thank you so so much for the brilliant replies!! Not sure what I would do without this site

[RyanB]

DC why have I not known about your pics already

Going to be such an asset for me going forward

[DeeCee 57]

pleasure Ryan, old stuff and lo quality picts of picts but all for free
Friend Marcel finished the -4 a few years later, his more recent pictures of engine and electrical install are here https://photos.google.com/share/AF1Q...Y4MDJuVndVUG9R

[az_gila]

Put a rivet at the intersection of the bulkhead and stringers. Then simply space your rivets so they miss the intersection when you add the skin on.

Along the longeron add rivets every 3 or 4 spaces in between the final skin rivets on the lower skin.

Make sure you place a straight edge alongside the bulkheads, the early plans had some errors in the bulkhead spacing.

That is how I did my -6A.

[RyanB]

Thank you Gill