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Newbie question: skin dent

Nashman

I'm New Here
Just starting out on my VS and I made my first (of many I'm sure) goof. Flipped VS-706 upside-down and when I wrapped the skin, the rib created a small but visible dent. I should have known better. I'll probably order a new skin to be safe, but would be helpful to get a second opinion. Am I going overboard or is this going to bother me every time I look at it?

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Mike
 
You should be able to gently work that dent out Mike. It looks minor to me. It?s good to set yourself high standards at the start, but mentally prepare yourself for much bigger mistakes as the build progresses :)
 
Spoon trick. Take a normal table spoon, cover the bottom with oil. Now place your dent over a metal plate, or a bucking bar. With your thumb in the spoon work it over the bump. Typically this will hide most small imperfections.
 
Looks like that may have been caused by not tapering the nose of the rib. You won't find that instruction in the plans anywhere but read enough build logs and you'll see that feathering sharp corners on nose ribs where the nose rib flange ends will minimize the chances of that happening.

Agree with previous comments, this is way minor and certainly doesn't warrant replacing the skin.

Sage advice to heed now is whenever you make a mistake, leave the shop and come back tomorrow. Mistakes have a way seeming not so tragic the following day.
 
If I had ten dollars for every imperfection I'd caused I'd be able to pay for the plane :D

Just wait for the rudder!!!
 
Looks like that may have been caused by not tapering the nose of the rib. You won't find that instruction in the plans anywhere but read enough build logs and you'll see that feathering sharp corners on nose ribs where the nose rib flange ends will minimize the chances of that happening.

This is absolutely in the -14 plans; it's explicitly called out in multiple sections.
 
Thanks for the words of encouragement.

This, and a night's sleep and I'm realizing that the next step is to bang on the entire structure with a rivet gun -- what could possibly go wrong? ;)
 
This is absolutely in the -14 plans; it's explicitly called out in multiple sections.

Oh yeah it totally is...my bad. Section 5.2 - Rib Flange Faceting!

I just closed my elevators in the last few days and if I had not given Section 5 another scan (which I do periodically), I would have forgotten the RTV on the trailing edges of the stiffeners. There is no reminder to do that in the section of steps for riveting the elevators shut.
 
innys

Dents that poke in are easily fixed at painting time with a little bondo. So turn an outy into an inny and fix it later with a little glaze. Make sure you use a two-part glaze with a hardener.
 
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