Since I was already working on stuff in the forward fuselage, I decided to tackle the air vents today. The air enters the cabin through plastic inlets that are attached to the fuselage side skins. Some people use only proseal here, but I decided I wanted to also use a few rivets in order to keep the inlets from coming loose down the road. Since the plastic they're made of is too thin and brittle to support a rivet directly, you need to find a way to beef up the inlets and give the rivets something to grab. I started by tracing the outline of the inlets onto some alclad sheet:
After much cutting, trimming, sanding, shaping, and deburring, I had a pair of aluminum doubler rings that were custom fit to the inlets.
The vent kit comes with a template, upon which I marked my rivet locations, then transferred them to the fuselage skins with a punch. Then I drilled #40 holes in the marked locations.
I carefully held the first inlet in place and drilled through the holes into the flange of the inlet. Careful measuring and marking pays off here. However, don't become so fixated on getting a good fit that you drill a hole in your finger, because trust me it is painful! Uh, I mean I heard that it is. From this one guy I know. Yeah.
Then I transferred the hole locations into the doubler ring. Repeat for the other side and the fitting of the vents was completed.
Before putting away the tools, I unclecoed the subpanel and its ribs and removed them from the fuselage in preparation for a little chore I need to do when I get a chance…
