Left Main skin dimpling - 19/05/2012 - 7h40

Now that the leading edges are completed, it's time to tackle the main wing skins.
The first task is to devynil them. Using the soldering iron you basically burn through the plastic and make straight lines that unveal the drilled holes. The other plastic stays on as long as possible to protect the aluminum against scratches.

Then deburred every hole front side and back side on all 4 skins. Yesterday I said, there are a ton of holes on the leading edge. Here I can say, there are a zillion holes on the main skins.

Additionally, you need to deburr the main ribs in the wing skeleton front and rear side.

Then used the C-Frame to hit the dimples in the skins. Very loud operation and killing your elbows with the hundreds of hits with the plastic mallet.
This job is best done with 2 persons, it speeds things up not x2 but x 3.

Finally, after hours, all skins are dimpled.

Then started squeezing the dimples using the pneumatic squeezer in the main skeleton ribs and rear spar. The rear spar is a bit tricky as the top flange is slightly angled.

One point of attention here: in the picture you can see the inboard side of the left wing, top side to the front. Notice the blue tape I used to cover some holes. These holes need no dimples and do not need to be rivetted on the main skin. They will be used later to attach the wing to fuselage polyester fairing with nutplates and screws. So again, no dimples here !

The left wing is now fully deburred and dimpled. Next task here is to clean the edges of the skins and scuffing for priming.


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