(10-12 step 9): This
morning the first thing I did was finish final drilling all the top
skin holes (the ones connecting the skins to the frames, bulkheads,
etc). Same drill as before… basically every hole in the
skins except for those in the forward skin where it mates to the F-1006
bulkhead. These holes are where the tailcone matches to the rest
of the fuselage so they'll be final drilled at that time.
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(10-13 step 3): Next
up was to make sure the aft deck was still clamped in its proper
location. Since the top skins want to be flat they have a
tendency to pull outward on the longerons a bit. Ours seemed to
have wandered out just a bit so I adjusted & reclamped
everything. Once it was all squared away I got to match drill the
four holes in the aft deck into the horizontal stabilizer attachment
angle and the spacer sitting on top of it. These comprise a bit
of aluminum so it was a decent amount of drilling. You get to
exercise a bit of patience here as the tendency to push the bit through
to speed things up creeps up in the back of your mind!
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(10-13 steps 4-7):
Look ma… no clamps! Here's a shot of the aft deck
completely pre-assembled. To get to this point I had to drill all
the vertical holes along the sides of the aft deck going through to the
longerons. After that it was all the holes in the F-1011B
stop/doubler. Then the attachment bar support angle and the up
elevator stop were clamped in place and then drilled. All of the
holes common with each of these pieces and the longerons were opened up
even further with a #12 drill bit. These holes will get bolts
instead of rivets.
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(10-14 step 1):
Angela came out to lend a hand… but wait… she's
taking it apart! Somebody stop her!! Actually, this begins
the teardown of the tailcone.
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(10-14 step 2): Once
the skins were off this allowed access to be able to attach the
shoulder harness attachment brackets for the rear seats. These
will bolt to the longerons so Angela's drilling #12 holes.
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| (10-15 steps 2 & 4): After
a quick lunch break Angela & I spent the rest of the day
disassembling. We adopted the approach of deburring as we
went. Basically pick a part, unclecoe it, debur the drilled
holes, inspect it for any other burrs, nicks or scratches, set it
aside, repeat. We both agreed we like this 'as we go' approach
since it really helped to break up the monotony of the whole process.
Unfortunately we didn't get the whole assembly torn down though. |
