Pleas tell me this is normal. F828 art bottom skin

[johntwilcox]

I have my sides on ( almost looks like a plane !) and at the point to Cleco on F828. The AFT bottom skin.

I can get on side cleco’d on, but then when trying to work the other side, it’s coming up about a 1/2 shy.

I guessing , as it’s a think SOB piece of alum, it’s a matter of working the bends to get it to fit, and the holes to align?

 

[PaulvS]

I have my sides on ( almost looks like a plane !) and at the point to Cleco on F828. The AFT bottom skin.

I can get on side cleco’d on, but then when trying to work the other side, it’s coming up about a 1/2 shy.

I guessing , as it’s a think SOB piece of alum, it’s a matter of working the bends to get it to fit, and the holes to align?

Try putting a cargo strap as a belt around the whole thing to help pull the skin up tight against the flange. Some lengths of duct tape can also help to pull and hold the skins together.

 

[Sam Buchanan]

My RV-6 (much less refined kit than yours...) is shimmed as necessary in a few places to insure a tight, conforming fit.

 

[PhatRV]

Search for wingnut cleco. It had tighter pull force than your normal cleco. In highly curvature section, cleco all the holes before you can check the fit. I remembered using all of my clecos to ensure the parts fit

 

[David Paule]

The cargo strap is worth a try, ut be careful not to buckle the bulkhead! It's pretty easy to do. You can place some wooden blocks between the strap and the skin where you need direct pressure, sometimes that helps.

On my RV-3B, that part was .040 thick and I spent a week or two carefully and slowly reforming it to make it fit right. Wasn't easy. While that was more than a decade ago and on a different airplane, remember that it did help a lot.

Dave

 

[riseric]

Try starting to cleco in the middle and work/massage by hand the skin going outwards one hole/cleco at a time ???

 

[PhatRV]

Also use an awl to line up the adjacent holes as you cleco. If there are gaps, try using the wing nut cleco if the size allows for it.

 

[johntwilcox]

Thought I would report on my solution, hopefully it may help the next person.

I eventually tried this, and it work so well, I suggest should be the recommendation in the plans.


I un-cleco’d the skin, and the bulkheads, 810 , 811, and 812

On each of the bulkheads, I bent/curved the tabs so they they lay closer to the skin.

Then I cleco’d the skin to the bottom of each bulkhead. With just the skin and the bulkheads the skin fit the curves and I was able to checo all the holes between the skin and the bulkheads 811 and 810.

With the skin +810+811 cleco’d together, I was able to slide from the rear, the bulkheads along the longerons into position. This largely solved the alignment problem, which seemed to be a result of the geometry of the longer pinching to the back.