Tank Assembly - Good & Bad
I hot-glued felt to the tank cradles to keep them from scratching the surface any more than it already is.

I cleco'd the bottom row of tank ribs to the skin and popped it into the cradle. Ugggh.. the top row of rivet holes doesn't line up. They are about a whole rivet hole off. Called Ray to ask if he had to mangle the ribs to get them to fit. It didn't sound like he did but he did say he ended trimming the foremost little tabs off to prevent them from scratching the skin.

Crap.. now what.

Yanked that skin out and tried the other skin. Bingo! The holes line up with this one. I did discover that the two end ribs have one rivet hole that is different than the inner ribs. WHY?? That doesn't make sense to me at all.

Here are some shots of the tank.

Tank 1
Tank 2
Tank 3

Not sure what I'm going to do about the other skin. I think the problem is that the bend line isn't where it should be. There is too much gap between the nose of the rib and skin. May have to reassemble my skin bender and see if I can bend it in a little closer.

(Time: 2 hours)

- posted by Matthew @ 10/9/2003 10:31:12 PM