Fuse Top Skin Replacement?

I have a line on a -8 project that is completed to the "finish kit" stage. Since I don't know how (what sequence of assembly) the fuselage is built, would it be overly difficult to replace all the upper skin from firewall to tailpost (upper longerons up)? Just so you know, I'm not asking about the difficulty of drilling rivets and basic sheetmetal work... I'm asking if there is anything buried in the structure from a very early step in construction that will now be a major PITA to replace "out of sequence"? If the top skin is the last to go on however, then I'm guessing the replacement is a simple R&R.

Thanks.

Why?


It's a lot of rivets to drill and some damage to the longerons will be done. You can do it but.....Why?

To answer your ?, nothing buried. The top skins are pretty much the end game in their respective sequence.

Why? Fastback and other possible mods.

The ShowPlanes kit is actually designed to modify a QB kit, with the aft skin already on at delivery...so I don't se a problem. (That's actually one of the little irritants about the kit for us slowbuilders...the instructions aren't made for us) The forward skin has some significant structural mods, as well as structural changes to the rails, and instrument panel, so that might be a show stopper for you


Joe

Well, the mods would be fabricated by me, as a one off, so I don't see that as a major hurdle.

wow - I'd leave the top skins on unless they were bad.

If it was a fastback, I would too!

jferraro16 said:

The ShowPlanes kit is actually designed to modify a QB kit, with the aft skin already on at delivery...so I don't se a problem. (That's actually one of the little irritants about the kit for us slowbuilders...the instructions aren't made for us) The forward skin has some significant structural mods, as well as structural changes to the rails, and instrument panel, so that might be a show stopper for you


Joe

Click to expand...

Why would going fastback require structural changes to the rails and instrument panel around the forward skin?

...because the Showplanes kit uses a RV-4 style "throwover" canopy rather than a slider...

Ahh, I was thining of this one:

http://members.cox.net/rv8fastback/