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Practice Project Question

sellis

Member
I have been delayed getting started on my project so I decided to do another practice rudder project before jumping in to the empennage. Step 6 says to cleco the skins to the skeleton. Sounds simple enough... Both parts are pre-punched, however, the holes are not even close to lining up between the two parts. The skins have 7 holes over the same span as the rib which has 6 holes. The stiffeners lined up just fine. What am I missing? You can see the two rows of holes in the pic (red arrows). I don't remember this issue in my first project almost a year ago (which I no longer have).
 

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That's more than a little misalignment and doesn't look anything like the normal differences and tolerances that get swept up by match drilling. Either you received the wrong parts, the parts were made wrong, or you have confused one part for another. If the first two, I'd reach out to the parts department at Van's. Maybe they sent you a bad piece. I've found that no part or question is too small for them to address - Van's really does have great customer service. Plus, you might learn something valuable along the way that will pay off 100x when you get your real parts.
 
Thanks for the response. I could not have confused one part for another. It's the practice kit and doesn't have any other parts to confuse. I'm guessing they sent me the wrong parts. I'll give them a call and confirm. I'm just glad I'm not as bad at this as this made me feel!
 
Thanks Girraf. Tried that as well. They were the same in terms of the # and spacing of the holes. Very odd!
 
The holes are likely not symmetrical top to bottom. Flip it over and stick it on the other end and see what you get.
 
drill the holes in the right place

You are lucky to receive a kit with a bonus opportunity to practice drilling some new holes in the locations where they need to be.
 
Are the skins flipped the wrong way? Like inside out? I seem to remember that they looked symmetrical, but aren’t...
 
If the holes don’t line up, you’re doing something wrong. Vans will purposely make the holes asymmetrical so you CAN’T assemble them wrong.
0.1% of the time someone will get a mis-bent skin or something.
Take a break and then take another look.
 
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