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RV-9A: Project Entry

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Now the scary part, dimpling the big screw holes along the edge of the left tank skin

Before I tried this part, I got a scrap piece from the empennage practice bundle that was the same thickness as the tank skin and drilled the same size holes in it, close to edge, like the tank skin. Then I got the “C” frame out and put the dimples dies and gave her a large single whack with my dead blow hammer. The resulting dimple looked like Meteor Crater, a dimple with a big dip around it in the sheet metal. “Well, that’s look like crap”, I thought. “Ooh ooh, I know!, I’ll try giving it two whacks with the dead blow hammer”. This dimple looked even worse, like a teenager with really bad acne. The instructions specifically say to NOT use a hand squeezer to put these dimples in, so therefore, I am going to try it. I got my handy Avery Rivet Squeezer and gave it a try, squeezing the dimple dies into the skin holes, with a lot of hand pressure and as fast as possible. The result was indeed better than the “C” frame. It still had a slight dip around the dimple, but not near as bad as the “C” frame dimples. As you can see, it turned OK. UPDATE 12/1/2006: Check out the entry on the Skins page to see how I got the screw hole "dips" out with my ATS rivet squeezer.

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