Wednesday, December 24, 2008

proseal is less messy each time

6.5 hours

Cleaned up the shop.  After the last proseal session I left things a bit tossed about and started the day by restoring order to the shop.

I spent some time working out the inboard end rib details for the fuel level sensor, vent line, and access plate.  I need to enlarge the rib opening slightly to accommodate the edge of the anti-rotation bracket for the fuel pickup.

The outboard end rib has a couple of tooling holes that need to be covered.  The leading edge has a reinforcing plate that takes care of the one, for the other I fabricated a small plate and prosealed it in with some rivets.

For this session I mixed the same quantity with my makeshift balance scale... one cleco, by weight, of part A.  I set the balance up for mixes of 1, 2, 3, and 4 clecos of part A.  As it turned out 1 cleco worth is plenty of proseal for a full session and will cover 3 ribs.  This is a pretty crappy way to mix proseal... it works but it is messy and time consuming.  I have a nice grain / gram scale that I need to get a hold of.

I completed the interior ribs along with the outboard end rib.  There are twice as many rivets in the outboard ribs but they can be squeezed.  I contemplated just bucking them since bucking had gone so well but I just squeezed them; the proseal makes the surface very slick and you need to take extra care when squeezing.  Drilling out rivets with wet proseal is to be avoided.

Tomorrow I plan to prepare the right tank for riveting and make a batch of proseal to set the stiffeners, touch up some rivet heads on the last rib where I ran out of proseal, and finish the last rib on the left tank...

The tooling holes in the outboard rib are covered with a small plate that i fabricated and with a stiffener plate at the tip.

fitting a small plate to seal up the tooling hole along with a backing plate for the tank hard attach point
after rivets and proseal
level sender, fuel pickup and vent fittings
pretty close to finishing this tank up

proseal... good to the last drop ;)
finished outboard rib
proseal