Finished drilling HS skins, damage claim settled

All the holes in the HS skins are drilled. Only trimming, deburring, dimpling/countersinking, priming and riveting left :-)

Got a mail this evening that the damage claim is settled. The parts that where damaged during shipping, will be replaced with new parts from Van's.

Skins HS drilling

Almost finished drilling both skins on HS. The second one was much faster than the first one. I imagined the skins would buckle and stretch and lots of difficulties, but they went on "just like that". I used these clamping clecos on both LE ends, then three large wooden clamps + some additional clamps.

Epoxy primer arrived

Finally the P05 Strontium Chromate epoxy primer arrived (base, hardener and thinner) + the aluminium cleaner DERINOXALU. I will have to re-can the base because it is in a rather difficult to handle 5L can.

First holes in HS skin

Finally, after lots of measurements and gathering of enough guts, the first holes in the HS skin was drilled. The manual say I should start at the intersection HS-408/rear spar, but I contacted Van's and got the information that it is better to clamp as good as possible and start in the middle and spread out from there.

I will continue on the other side and drill/cleco alternately from each side. It probably doesn't matter, but somehow it feels that this will be better in terms of getting everything straight.

HS measured and ready for skinning

Trimmed the skins so they fitted in the jig. Measured and clamped the skeleton into the jig. Made an additional fasteners so that the HS-405 ends will have correct distance from each other and from the CL. Temporary fastened the HS-407 with wood to prevent them from bending while fitting the skins. Marked centerlines and measured distances for rivet lines onto the jig.

Have to make some paper templates to prevent drilling into the fluting, otherwise everything is ready for skinning.

Now I thing I start to understand the reason for pre-punched skins.