Solving hole mismatch near rear and side skin join - adding an additional rivet
A hole is actually omitted from the side skin, however there is a corresponding hole in the rear skin and in the internal upright channels. None of these existing holes match up very well. Previously I created a matching hole in the RH side skin, but I backed the wrong horse. With centre and rear fuselage lined up, I found that this 4mm side skin (on top) hole really was not optimally placed. Inspecting a club aircraft I found that this rivet is actually omitted, however the flex in the side skin caused by the top rail actually caused the side skin to lift 1.5-2mm away from the rear skin in this area, and in that case the gap was plugged with filler. So I decided that a rivet was needed there after all. So I decided to install a 4.8mm rivet, which mopped up not only the slightly misplaced 4mm hole I had previously drilled in the RH side skin, but also mopped up the mislalignments in the internal upright channel holes. The only exception was the rear skin, whose hole was far out of position. This did not matter, as it was covered up.

Missing hole in side skin, here LH side is shown

RH side, 4.8mm hole. Note the rear skin hole position is way off but this 4.8mm hole lines up well with the interior upright channel holes, absorbing the mismatch there.

RH side, here the aft flange (left) of the upright channel has a approx 1mm fold position error. It overcompensates for the 1.6mm thick top rail. The front flange (right) is correctly stepped, perfectly accomodating the top rail channel

Easy fix was to JB-Weld a thin AN3 washer (0.8mm) thick. This was smeared with Duralac yellow on the outer surface.

This post is from Adam Dickson