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Consternation regarding aileron skin hole alignment

gotyoke

Well Known Member
While wraping the skin around the aileron skeleton (22-04 step 3), I man-handled the skin enough for my wife to get clecoes into the holes. But try to slip a AD3 rivet in the holes and they don't go because of slight (tiny fractions of hole widths) misalignment. We've disassembled and reassembled a few times with the same alignment issues. I have my doubts about proceeding with the counterbalance drilling while I have this issue going on.

Short of planning to run a reamer through the holes when the time comes, enlargening/ovaling them slightly so rivets will fit, does anyone have tips for getting these things aligned?
 
I frequently use a scratch awl to align holes. Definitely do not drill or ream to get alignment. Available at your local hardware or home improvement store.
 
Are you for real? Consternation ...?
In my view/experience occasional minor misalignment is inevitable/acceptable, put a drill through and set the rivets.
The whole beauty of rivets is they swell to fill the hole.
Its your aircraft to build how you like, exact alignment is the goal that is sometimes not achievable without undue effort - you're building to fly one day, right?
Take a look at some production aircraft when you next have a chance ...
Pete
 
This is an inevitable event you will confront over and over again. You aren’t always going to have the option of disassembling and trying again. The best option is the awl. I took an old screwdriver and grinded the tip into a point. Shove the point into the holes and kind of rotate and wiggle it around just enough to fit the rivet. On some of the thicker pieces you will need a reamer. Your though that the resulting hole won’t be perfectly round is valid but you will need to do this many many times. Good luck.
 
This is how I align holes in order of preference
1 Alignment pin rotated in a circular motion
2D6EAEC5-06F1-480B-9F42-8A69D083FDF4.jpeg
2 Orientate clecos so they are expanding in direction you want to align holes
3 When applicable, 2” vinyl tape to pull and hold skin
4 Reamer as last resort.
I’m working on fuselage on slow build and have found the alignment pin is by far the most used tool to align holes.
Cheers,
Todd
 
I find that using a punch for the size of the hole much in the same manner everyone else is describing helps those alignment issues. At a minimum, you'll get the dimples to sit within each other and make everything snug enough to get the rivet in.
 
Did you round off the fingers on the flanges of the forward end ribs?
This will greatly help to get the skin to conform around the leading edges.

See page 10-06, Figure 1.
 
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