Tonight I set out to repair the bulkhead flange where I found elongated holes the other night. I decided to simply fabricate a new flange unit and rivet it to the bulkhead web. Not excessively complicated, but a little tedious making sure everything fit properly.
Here’s the splice piece after bending and trimming it to fit:
Then it was time to take a really deep breath and cut off the damaged flange. OK, not that deep of a breath, since this portion was ruined anyway, but still…
To fit the repair piece, I clecoed the bulkhead to the aft bottom skin, clamped the splice into place, and drilled it to the bulkhead flange. After deburring all the holes, I riveted it to the bulkhead:
Then it was just a matter of clecoing the bulkhead in place again and drilling the two #40 holes in the flange, using the skin as a guide.
I also went ahead and deburred the aft bottom skin while I had it down from its storage spot. Next up is – I think – more deburring. Quite a bit of it as a mater of fact. I’ve been trying to knock out the deburring a little at a time with other work sessions, but now I think I’ll just have to buckle down and spend a day doing it. We shall see.