H

hjd3021

Member
Was doing my final inspection of ribs for HS after completing fluting Deburring and priming. I was using a magnifier to look at flutes closely and discovered that I had small cracks at the top edges on some of the flutes. Apparently I was too aggressive with some of the flutes. Looks like I have cracks on more than half of the ribs. :(. Was curious if anyone else has had this issue in the past? Could not find in a search on fluting issues. The fluting pliers I have make a nice smooth indent. Apparently I just need to flute more places and less deep to minimize potential for cracking in the thin material. Have ordered replacements for these as they are not acceptable to me.
 
Fluting in more locations will also make the rib less faceted and will help with better alignment on all holes.
This will reduce the the likelihood of you fighting to get rivets installed in all holes.
I recommend a minimum of every other space between holes.
 
rvbuilder2002 said:
Fluting in more locations will also make the rib less faceted and will help with better alignment on all holes.
This will reduce the the likelihood of you fighting to get rivets installed in all holes.
I recommend a minimum of every other space between holes.
Click to expand...

I agree. VERY Lightly fluting every other or every space between holes and then checking to see if the rib lies flat, AND running a flexible metal ruler on the rib edge to check the center alignment of the holes was helpful for me on the Stab Skins...working on the wing ribs now and applying the same philosophy.

Not as important on the stab skins, but applying that I had a pretty easy job of attaching the skins.

You might also want to check your fluting pliers for jagged edges that might be causing the crack to develop.
 
Thanks Scott and John for the feedback. I will flute in more locations to a lesser extent on the new ribs. I did note that my fluting pliers have some fairly sharp feeling edges at the front corners. I am going to do some work on them and some testing on some now scrap ribs
 
Dave -thanks for the feedback. I ordered one of the tools you suggested after this happened as it appeared it did not have the edge issues. I had seen it mentioned by others as well in fluting posts. Also had seen some others making similar tools themselves.
 
fluting pliers

Another advantage of the vice grip style fluting pliers is that they replicate the same flute depth. This will come in handy on the wing ribs.
 
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