Tue Feb 16 2010

Dog platform supports

After cutting a new piece of the UHMW tape, I got to work on getting the supports installed. First step was to clean the surface of the part with alcohol. Next, I identified there was a definite sequence here because some of the rivets (the AN426's) need to be under the tape, but the rest go on after the tape is fully in place. So I peeled and cut part of the backing off to allow me to stick the tape to the forward flange of the bulkhead rib.

...then wrapped this tape tab around the backside of this flange. I'm hoping that when this is trapped by the doubler angle it will prevent the tape from peeling away over the years. Time will tell.

When I had placed the doubler angle in position, I could see that the .020 relief wasn't quite long enough. Look near the lower end of the tape.

A little touchup with the file...

...and some dabbed on primer to cover the bare aluminum...

...resulted in the correct relief for the tape.

Next task was to squeeze the flush rivets.

Then the remaining backing was peeled away and the tape was smoothed down. I used a 5/16 steel dowel pin with a nice rounded end to apply quite a bit of pressure all over this tape and get really good contact with the underlying surface.

Next, I squeezed the remaining rivets...not a trivial task because the pneumatic squeezer doesn't really work on long rivets, so I used the Main Squeeze. Unfortunately it's quite a bit longer than the pneumatic squeezer, so it was barely able to fit in the space between this vertical bulkhead rib and the edges of the F-706 bulkhead itself. Anyway it all worked out. Oh, after taking these photos I did notice I had left the bottom-most rivet out and installed that one, too.

So, here's how it works...slip the end of the center support in at an angle...

...and pivot it down, locking it in place.

While not airplane related, I thought you might get a kick out of this photo. We've been getting so much snow recently that we've had to shovel a path for Snickers to go out in the back yard. Poor little guy!