I've had tight skins on other parts of the plane, but none have been the struggle that the forward top skin has been (tip-up). With other skins, like the tanks and wing leading edges, I figured out how to hold my tongue just right, use ratchet straps, etc to get them into alignment. So far I haven't found that secret for the forward skin (771)! No matter which order I cleco things in place, it's consistently about 1/4" short at the longeron. I've tried ratchet straps, but that didn't budge it. Any tips from those who had the same struggle?
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Forward Top Skin Fit (Tip-Up)
- Thread starter skelrad
- Start date
PaulvS
Well Known Member
The thickness .032 makes it more difficult to fit than the other .025 skins. I took the skin to a sheet metal shop that has a roller and they curved it to shape, so as to match some templates for the fuselage bulkheads. It worked out well and other builders here follow the same practice.
5 hours later and after having removed the skin 100 times to try different approaches, I finally got it close enough. I carefully rolled the skin to pre-shape it like was mentioned, then using a heat gun on the skin before throwing the strap on it helped a little too. I'm still not thrilled with how it fit, but moving on. I was never able to get the forward corner holes (both sides) to line up with the existing side skin and firewall flange holes. Absolutely nothing I tried worked. I finally just decided to upsize that last hole to a #30, which allowed me to fudge the location enough to match them up.
You may want to have some NAS1241 (or NAS1097) rivets on hand:
https://flyboyaccessories.com/products/mini-oops-rivets-sold-by-the-ounce
I used a few of these on my C-702 canopy skin after flogging out some holes from re-clecoing a thousand times. I'm expecting I'll use some more when I get to the F-771 too.
https://flyboyaccessories.com/products/mini-oops-rivets-sold-by-the-ounce
I used a few of these on my C-702 canopy skin after flogging out some holes from re-clecoing a thousand times. I'm expecting I'll use some more when I get to the F-771 too.
