Champ
Well Known Member
I did the Service Letter today. Used left over .032x21/32x21/32 stiffner angles instead of waiting for Vans kit. The only difficulty I had was that the dimensions given on the SL needed some tweaking. I contacted Van's support on this and they said that was OK. Attached is a picture of how I transferred the stiffner layout to the outside of the fuselage to verify edge distance and fit to the flanges of the bulkheads.
Van's locations are #1 on the picture. I did use the Van's location for the bottom rivet but it took some fancy fileing of the stiffner to fit to the bulkhead flange and give enough edge distance. I moved the top rivet to location #2 to give better edge distance and distance from the bulkhead flange. Note - the double line at the top edge of the stiffner is not thickness but shows the radius of the stiffners bend.
Bottom line - I'd suggest that if your doing this SL check rivet locations before drilling exactly to Van's dimensions - especially if fabricating your own stiffners and every build may vary slightly dimensionally wrt bulkhead flanges.
Edit - I used AN426AD3-4 rivets instead of the -3s and was able to squeeze the three top rivets and buck the bottom 2.
Van's locations are #1 on the picture. I did use the Van's location for the bottom rivet but it took some fancy fileing of the stiffner to fit to the bulkhead flange and give enough edge distance. I moved the top rivet to location #2 to give better edge distance and distance from the bulkhead flange. Note - the double line at the top edge of the stiffner is not thickness but shows the radius of the stiffners bend.
Bottom line - I'd suggest that if your doing this SL check rivet locations before drilling exactly to Van's dimensions - especially if fabricating your own stiffners and every build may vary slightly dimensionally wrt bulkhead flanges.
Edit - I used AN426AD3-4 rivets instead of the -3s and was able to squeeze the three top rivets and buck the bottom 2.
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