6/1/2006
Tonight was the last sealant session before starting on the ribs. I started by roughing the surfaces of the skins and T-406 fuel cap flanges. Then I spread some sealant around the area, installed and taped the rivets, and set the flange in place. Then I set the rivets via backriveting, and covered the rivet heads with sealant.
After doing both tanks, I set 'em aside to fill the tooling holes in the aft outboard ribs. There are a couple of ways to do this. One is to rivet a small plate over the hole, then seal it. The other, and the way I did it, is to install a 470AD6 rivet squeezed to fill the hole. I thought this was the easiest way to do this, but without doing it the other way, I'll never know. However, this way was as simple as it sounds. I didn't have any 470AD6 rivets, so I took a 470AD5 and squashed it a little to make a 6. So, after those are cleaned, I sealed 'em.
Then I cleaned the outside skins where the cap flanges were riveted. These get a little messy from riveting.
I'm gonna let those sit for a couple of days to cure well before starting on the ribs. I needed to drill the T-410 reinforcement plates to the outboard ribs. These are just drilled and deburred at this point.
2.0 hours