I was surprised this evening to find one of the pre-punched holes in one of the elevator skins out of alignment. It was a full 1/16" out. The other three skins were correct. Naturally, at first I assumed I had screwed something up (again) but not so this time.
I've got a series of pictures below which illustrate what I found and how I dealt with it. Has anyone else had this experience? Are there any suggestions on how to better deal with this should it happen again?
Figure #1, Clecos in the skin and a ruler show the alignment issue.
The problem was painfully clear while final-drilling. After thinking it through, I knew I would have to drill the hole where it was - one way or another, so I drilled into the rib, knowing I'd have to deal with it again.
Figure #2, The rib with the bad hole. The top-left of the mangled hole is where Van's expected the hole on the skin to be. The bottom-right of the mangled hole is where the hole in the skin actually was.
My solution was to take some scrap aluminum and make a little plate to go over the messed up hole. I first positioned it over the messed up part of the rib, clamped it, and match-drilled to the hole I knew was matched to the skin. I then match drilled another hole to hold the plate to the rib, deburred, dimpled and riveted the plate to the rib with a flush rivet.
Figure #3, Plate only with the hole matched to the skin.
Figure #4, Plate riveted to the rib
Figure #5, Rib with hole moved to match skin clecoed in place.
Last thing I did was to mark the outside of the skin to remind myself to use a longer rivet in that spot when the time comes.
I've got a series of pictures below which illustrate what I found and how I dealt with it. Has anyone else had this experience? Are there any suggestions on how to better deal with this should it happen again?
![2luqfjd.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi56.tinypic.com%2F2luqfjd.jpg&hash=3b2c3a359bfac13865deacdd1b7720a0)
Figure #1, Clecos in the skin and a ruler show the alignment issue.
The problem was painfully clear while final-drilling. After thinking it through, I knew I would have to drill the hole where it was - one way or another, so I drilled into the rib, knowing I'd have to deal with it again.
![rs91c6.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi56.tinypic.com%2Frs91c6.jpg&hash=0eb46c409a26dcf3d30cba9c5d91a1d3)
Figure #2, The rib with the bad hole. The top-left of the mangled hole is where Van's expected the hole on the skin to be. The bottom-right of the mangled hole is where the hole in the skin actually was.
My solution was to take some scrap aluminum and make a little plate to go over the messed up hole. I first positioned it over the messed up part of the rib, clamped it, and match-drilled to the hole I knew was matched to the skin. I then match drilled another hole to hold the plate to the rib, deburred, dimpled and riveted the plate to the rib with a flush rivet.
![zlceh0.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi54.tinypic.com%2Fzlceh0.jpg&hash=c762bdd76069dbd38e08443e51951c21)
Figure #3, Plate only with the hole matched to the skin.
![2rpdulw.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi54.tinypic.com%2F2rpdulw.jpg&hash=8b7ae4769f425ac2814de882fc2b426a)
Figure #4, Plate riveted to the rib
![hvt1qw.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi52.tinypic.com%2Fhvt1qw.jpg&hash=de419d7f949c26505ab35699e1d05345)
Figure #5, Rib with hole moved to match skin clecoed in place.
Last thing I did was to mark the outside of the skin to remind myself to use a longer rivet in that spot when the time comes.
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