FEBRUARY 14, 2004
Today was the tank sealing party!! What fun. I started with the stiffeners and the fuel drain. This is obviously the drain.
A shot of the stiffeners. The sealant is there but is a little hard to see. It looks gray in this shot, but it is really very black.
A shot of me applying sealant to a rib. I am using a Semco gun that I bought on E-bay. For what it is worth the sealant that I bought from AC Spruce did not have nozzles included. The last batch did and I did not notice they were missing until after I had mixed the first batch. You do not need the nozzles but it sure makes the work neater. I am going to buy some before I install the tank back.
In this shot I am using a plastic resin spatula to smooth out the bead of sealant My neighbor, Paul, is doing a little cleaning while he waits to buck the next set of rivets.The picture was taken by Paul's wife, Judy. Judy also inserted rivets as she was the only one with clean gloves. It makes it much easier when you have multiple people helping!!
We installed 5 ribs today. The upper line here is the vent and the lower line is the return for the the purge valve. Tomorrow we will install the outer ribs and all the hardware that goes with them. After that I will cover all the rivet heads and build the needed fillets. The tank back will be installed next weekend.