Custom rear-centre fuselage skin joining doubler
Although the edge-centre distance of the upsized and recentered holes joining the centre and rear fuselage joining skins - varying from 8mm to 10mm was not too bad, there was not a lot of margin either. Surprising that there was not two rows of rivets, such as present in the wing skin joins. The CF-STR-001/002 stringers clearly do a lot of the work of providing a strong connection between these skins, being designed to transfer a lot of longitudinal force into the skins. There is also of course the top rail and the bottom skin connection as well. I asked Sling about this, they stated that this skin-skin connection was plenty strong enough. However I could see no harm in strengthening the skin-skin connection if it could be done easily. I proposed a doubler, which would transfer loads just as the stringers do, namely into the respective skins. Such a doubler, enhancing a single row rivet connection into a two-row rivet connection, would offload the ultimate strength required of the stringer connections without actually redistributing the stresses within the airframe.

Proposed doubler, originally made from 0.63mm 6061-T6. The "X" make the positions of new 4.1mm holes, doubling the attachment to the rear side skin

Final double design, made from 0.5mm 6061-T6. The single line of 4.1mm holes is replaced by a zig-zag pattern of 3.2mm holes. I used the thinner material because it reduced the "lumpiness" of the final result, and the connection is still strongly rivet-strength limited.

The doubler having been match drilled to the front skin holes, is used as a template to drill new holes in the rear side skin

Rear side skin, with new 3.2mm holes.

The doubler is now slipped behind both skin layers, adjusted and clecoed into position

All the fore- and aft-rivets are set, leaving only the 4.8mm rivets. Duralac green used and fay sealing with Sika 291.

Final result, LH side

Final result, RH side
This post is from Adam Dickson