F-779 Skin

Thought I had better ask for some advise before messing something up.

I have been fighting with my lower, aft tail skin (F-779) and bulkheads as they "install" into the lower aft portion of the fuselage.

My major difficulty is with the assembly sequence, install the skin and frames as an assembly or as individual pieces?

And, does the lower aft skin go under the "J" channel flange, against the bulkheads or over the flange putting it between the flange and skin?

Please excuse me if it says "how to" in the plans, I did not see any mention of it and all I'm seeing now is red!

Steven L. Hild
La Vernia, TX
N590SC

Install of Aft Lower Skin

Can't recall the skin in reference to the J-stringers, but I believe from inside to outside, it's j-stringer, aft lower skin, then side skin in the layer.

I constructed the lower skin as an assembly with both 711/712 bulkheads riveted in the skin. If you have a tailwheel mount, your're going to want to do this as things get interesting with riveting and you'll want all the room you can find. So far, it's been about the most challenging parts of the fuselage.

Jim Piavis
-7 Fuse
http://adap.com/rv7

Steven,

Starting out the outside of the aircraft, the sequence is:

1) Outside skin(s) <-- Including the bottom skin
2) F-779 skin
3) ?J? stringer
4) Bulkhead

I had to bend it by hand to make it fit right and take out a lote of clicos to slide it in.

On my -9 I messed up match drilling the thing (don?t ask how) and wound up with a second set of holes in my 779 skin. (There is a picture are on my web site) The replacement skin came out much better and since mine will be a tail dragger I went up one rivet size with Van?s blessing.

Don?t forget to notch the longeron so it terminates at the very aft bulkhead. I didn?t do this and was wondering why they stuck out when I put the forward side skins on. No harm done as I had not drilled any holes in when I discovered my mistake.