Aft Tail Skin Fabrication

[GAHorn]

NIce restoration work!

[spduffee]

It is a very valuable education, indeed. Moreover, Jim is not allowing me to cut corners and it will be a complete restoration of this assembly. I would have been happy to simply repair the assembly, but Jim is very convincing. I'll post photos of the finished product. Maybe I can convince Jim to post some photos of his 170 - it's a work of art. Some of you may know of it - a severley damaged rebuild of just about everything you can imagine.

[bat443]

Looks great. Just a quick question. Were you able to just wrap it around the bulkheads or did you need to use a roller? Thank's, Tim

[spduffee]

Looks great. Just a quick question. Were you able to just wrap it around the bulkheads or did you need to use a roller? Thank's, Tim

Good question. I thought we would just form it around the two bulkheads. But it was put into a roller, first straight down the center, then the piece was rotated to form the fat end, rotated again to the other side, back and forth, back and forth. The roller was tightened down more on the small radius Side than on the big end. By the time Jim was done, it had a slight curvature at the bottom, then we tacked it on , and it fit perfectly.

[spduffee]

Things are progressing nicely on the tail section. Not that I look to E-bay for technical knowhow, but as I was browsing through Cessna parts when I noticed this rudder hinge. I don't need one, mine is fine, but I don't remember having the rectangular piece pictured with the rudder hinge. I would assume this is a doubler, behind the bulkhead. I doesn't look well made, so maybe it was a repair-doubler and the seller is selling it as he/she found it? I am just about to rivet these parts all together, and don't want to miss anything, or miss an opportunity to add something that could prolong the life of this very hard to find aft bulkhead. It could help prevent a crack in that connection point...Thoughts?

Rudder Hinge.jpg

[mike roe]

I am not sure the year of your 170 but I had a 52 which I did the same skin replacement. While in the area I added 2 bulkhead doublers which mine did not have. They can be found on page 48, item 22, #0512118-8(R)-9(L) Might be worth looking at.
Mike Roe

[c170b53]

Well I kind of eluded to this before with all of the parts coming together, but maybe you're well ahead of me. You might want to have a long straight rod to check that rudder hinges will align before your final assembly of the vertical fin to the fuselage. Just a guess but that may be the purpose of that shim.