Steve Ashby

Steve Ashby

Well Known Member
Sponsor
Attn. Silly Question department:
I am working on my 8A fuselage and I just finished fitting, drilling dimpling and priming the 825PP aft top fuselage skin. I know the next major step is to turn the fuselage over onto some saw horses and begin working on the belly and landing gear. The plans do not say to rivet the skin on at this point, but I cannot find any reference to riveting this skin on in later sections. This may be a stupid question, but exactly when do I rivet the skin on. Should I leave it off for now so that I can turn the fuse over on the saw horses? Do I rivet the skin on and simply position the aft saw horse behind the skin? I am seriously cornfused.
 
My decidely non-expert opinion is , "only when you're certain you have everything installed in the tail cone." If you've ever worked in the TCone on your side or belly, you know it ain't fun. So my outlook is, it's never too late to rivet that aft top skin, but plenty of opportunities are probably too early. Things like A/P pitch servo, wiring to tail/rudder lights, manual trim cable, access to the elev bellcrank, strobe power pack (if installed back there), shoulder harness attach bolts, etc, etc. are all do-able with the skin off, and v-e-r-y difficult with the skin on. Be in no hurry, tempting as it might be to pound a few rivets some days.

Terry
 
I agree with Terry.

Wait till you are absolutely sure you are done back there, then do it the next day.:)
 
Wait

I made the mistake of starting to rivet this skin on a few weeks ago. As soon as I put some rivets in I realized that I still had to put wiring in the tail cone. Now I'll either have to drill a bunch of rivets out or get used to working in tight quarters. Oh well.
 
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