24/11/2009 - Side ribs for seat area and baggage area

Started out the day on the seat area side ribs.  The ones with no pre-punched holes in, from the plans and the holes in the skin they are not a straight rib either.  First job is to draw some lines, one along the flange so drilling is not a drama, and the others to make the rivet holes roughly so that flutes are in the right place.

Fluting takes a little long as the flutes need to create the right shape for the rib to fit the holes.  It took me a little while to figure it out, but its all in the fluting !

Then its just a case of back drilling from underneath, and the bolt hole in the 4 picture in the above sequence.  It also helps not to drill through your helpers thumb...sorry Bernard!

To get the end flange to fit properly its necessary to take about 1/8th of an inch off the width, the picture below shows the line just before cutting.

The baggage area side rib on the other hand proved trickier.  The plans and the instructions just tell you helpfully to 'fit them'.  Its a little more complex than that and some research over lunch instructed me that both ends of the rib need modifying as they are from the RV-6.

The rib needs to fit but up to the flange on the bulkheads and not as I first thought inside the bulkhead.  This make sense or else the rib would be lifted away from the skin where rib rested inside the bulkhead.  Thanks to Mike Bullock and his website which proved very helpful here,

The rib needs to fit snugly aligned with the bottom skin, i.e. flush.

The aft end of the rib also needs modifying to accommodate the bulkhead here.

Then drill it all when its well clamped including the jointing plates as shown below.

I then clecoed on the partner for the forward bulkhead and attached the side plates.  Well it all fits so far!

The end of the day was nigh, but I could not resist pulling out the seat and baggage area flooring and clecoing in place

Next stop is the crotch strap kit, now where did I put my crow enterprises seat belts.  Think I might have mentioned them before, anyway they are junior dragster harnesses, and Crow will provide them to the correct length for the RV, at a fraction of the price of Hookers.