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Permalink Reply by Bart mcCoy on October 24, 2012 at 1:21am

Good idea. I was going to recommend using a scope. Do you recall the location it came from?

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Permalink Reply by Brian A Manlove on October 24, 2012 at 8:37am

Bart:  I'm not 100% sure but think it came from the area of the rib where the aileron reinforcement channel is attached - maybe one of the 4 cross-brace L angles.  I don't think it was a rivet snapping because I've felt around there and there isn't any loose rivet.  My worst fear is that a rib flange cracked... so the scope should show if that's the case or not.   

The weird thing is that I wasn't riveting in that area - I was working on the 4 root ribs at the time, and it definitely was not coming from there.  Also - everything that I riveted had been clecoed... just removing clecos and running rivets... but sometimes clecos don't exert the same pull on a part the way a closed rivet does.   

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Permalink Reply by Dale Medendorp on October 24, 2012 at 9:42am

Are you sure it wasn't a cleco? I've had them snap into position several seconds (or longer) after i inserted them if they hadn't seated properly initially. A slight flexing of the join can cause them to snap into position.

Dale

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Permalink Reply by Ken Ryan on October 24, 2012 at 10:24am

I second Dale's observation! Has happened to me more than once.

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Permalink Reply by Brian A Manlove on October 24, 2012 at 11:51am

Wow - that makes me feel a ton better... it most definitely could have been a cleco "snapping" and echoing in the wing.  I have searched inside the wing as much as possible - still waiting for my scope camera to come - but through the access panel, wingtip, and root ribs, everything looks totally normal and solid.  Every rivet looks really good, nice and tight.  

The way the ribs rivet to the main spar - they can still "float" laterally until the skins get riveted to the spar - i left out the 1st 3 rivets on every rib so I can slide the nose skin under there - now I'm thinking one of the clecos I had going into the spar was not fully seated. Still gonna scope it to be absolutely sure!

Thanks

Brian M. 

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Permalink Reply by John Austin on October 24, 2012 at 3:49pm

Even if you find nothing - look on the bright side - you did get to buy that scope! ;)

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