Title: Center section oopsie
When I dimpled the belly skin for the center section, I somehow missed the two holes which match the aft end of the F-725 outermost baggage ribs. This is an area where there is a separate tab that's intended to have the tailcone skin nest between the center section skin and the tab on the rib. I had dimpled the ribs appropriately, but not the skin, and I couldn't just hit it with a squeeze since there is a gap between the two at that particular rivet that you eventually slide the aft skin into. After pondering this for a while, the solution I came up with was to dimple a piece of scrap, slide it in between the two and then attempt to dimple the skin as the top layer of the sandwich. This worked okay. It's not the crisp dimple a dimple as you would have gotten if you'd dimpled the skin separately as intended, but as dimples go, it's probably a 9 out of 10. The issue is that in nesting all that stuff, there was enough slop in positioning the dimple dies, that that hole in the rib tab got egg shaped. Plus, the way that they come from Vans, there's practically no E.D. there to start with. I can't see that particular tab does a whole lot in the best case, but I went ahead and sent a picture to Vans along with a couple of options off the top of my head. The response I got back was a confirmation of my plan to just fab a dimpled "washer" to back up the wallowed out hole. With the comment from Kevin Miller (response edited for clarity) Hi Terry, That puny little tab provides very little strength. A slightly longer rivet may be required. The result will be just as strong as the original. Best regards, happy riveting, and build on!


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