Lindy
10/15/2006
I needed a day like today! Not a whole lot to show for the time, but I needed that time in the shop. I started early this morning by disassembling the left aileron, deburring and dimpling everything, and countersinking the counterweight pipe.
The leading edge skin is dimpled using the countersink in the pipe as a female die. This has become the method to use since there is no chance of getting a regular female die in there without damaging the skin. I built a "jig" to set the skin and cleco'd pipe on to pound the set from the c-frame with the male die in it.
This whole process was repeated for the other side after lunch. Then I prepped and primed the counterweight pipe.
That will be the extent of priming for the ailerons. I primed the stiffeners and the pipe, and I only did that because it is steel, and the skins and rivets are AL, and the countersink stands a good chance of rusting at some point (although it is galvanized water pipe...). When those were dry, I blind riveted the nose ribs to the pipe.
The spar is cleco'd to the nose ribs and riveted.
To finish out the day, I cleco'd the aft skins to the nose section, and riveted the counterweight pipe to the nose skin. Compare the next two pictures. I didn't like how the CS4-4's were sitting in the dimple. This happens because the skin bends sharply right there, and the rivet head is flat. Well the CS4-4's are fairly soft aluminum, so I took my regular shop claw hammer, and lightly tapped on and around the head to make it sit nice and flush with the curve.
All done until tomorrow. The next step is to rivet the top skins to spar line.
5.75 hours