Time: 4 Hours
I have limited space on my large workbench as one of my fuel tanks is laying on it full of fuel for leak testing. So in order to keep working I had to skip around on the plans since the large skins would be next but I need the workbench for those. So I moved on to the splice plates that attach the outboard edge of the fuel tanks to the inboard edge of the leading edge section.
This plate will get riveted in between the skin and rib of the leading edge. The other side will have nutplates attached for a #8 screw to attach the fuel tank skin to. So I used an K1100-8 nutplate as a guide to drill all the rivet holes.
With those holes complete I needed to countersink them to accept a AN4263-3.5 rivet and have the head flush so that the tank skin sits flat.
I then grabbed the pneumatic squeezer and several dimple dies. For the rivet holes that go along the leading edge skin I used my 3/32 tank dies, this gives just a slightly deeper dimple and will accept the skins dimple better. I will use that die for the underlying rib plus a little countersinking so the two pieces sit well. I had won these dimple dies and planned on using them on the fuel tanks as they were intended to help with the ProSeal that gets under the head of the rivets. I had totally forgot that I won them and they sat in the box until I was cleaning up, oh well the rivets on the tanks came out nice so no big deal. On the other side of the splice I used the #8 dimple die for the screws.
After scuffing up the splice plates with the scotch-brite pads and cleaning them I got both sides primed.
I also received my SafeAir EFIS plumbing for the pitot, AOA and static lines. It also has all the connections to complete the setup. I needed this as the plumbing will be in the left wing and very hard to get to when the wings are closed up.
I will get the nutplates riveted tomorrow after the primer sets up a little.
