Deburred right leading edge ribs

Wow…between things becoming crazy at work, and getting some kind of stomach bug, it really has been 2.5 weeks since I touched this project.  Even today, I slept in pretty late in an attempt to recover from a long and stressful week at work, and then spent some time fixing up a side project of mine.  I did resolve to do something out in the garage today though…so I went out and got to work on the right leading edge ribs.

Deburring these things is tedious.  I’d already taken care of all the big edges previously with the bench grinder and die grinder, but all the little nooks and crannies need attention.  The leading edge/tank ribs in particular have lots of these, especially on the nose of the rib.  Oh, and the instructions say to pay special attention to this area to make fitting the skins easier.

I ended up figuring out a pretty decent method, using a couple of mini files and one normal one.  I’d use a mini flat file to hit up the small straight areas, then use a rat tail file to work the corners and such.  That still left the nose area a little rougher than I liked, so I ended up using a normal file to really work the nose area down and get it smooth.

I’m probably going overboard with this stuff, but better to do it right the first time.  Plus I just feel better about my work this way.

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