I had a couple of replies on the forums. One went into some detail about how they had used straps to cinch the metal skin to the ribs and then four pairs of hands to push the skin down while someone tried to get the holes in the ribs to line up “all with much cursing”. Another reply told me that he and his 10 year old granddaughter had found it straight forward – zing! Later, others would write and tell me that they had had so much trouble they had given up on the slats for the time being or, in one case, completely! So, this is not necessarily an easy task.
So, we went with the straps and bought some velcro ones from the local DIY store that we used to tightly close the skin when folded. I drew red lines down the centre of each rib so that I could get some sense whether the hole was to the left of the right of the pre-drilled one on the skin. From there Teri would put pressure on the skin while allowing me to insert the cleco and hunt for the hole. In most cases it was real close and not that difficult to fasten. The center rib was the hardest (since there isn’t much you can do to see what is going on) but a little persuasion (and some cursing!) got ‘er done.
What a thing of beauty! With the ribs in place, we placed clecos in the pre-drilled holes on the back side of the skin, and then returned to the top side to fasten the part where the skin edges overlap.
With every thing in place, and no perceivable twist in the slat, I opened all the holes to size 30
and fastened with the copper clecos.
Everything was then disassembled, holes and edges deburred, primer applied and reassembled and then riveted. The ribs were riveted one rivet at a time starting with the aft-most rivet going across the slat then working our way down to the leading edge. This helps to ensure that the ribs don’t get pulled out of shape and a twist is introduced. A quick spell with the rivet gun and our first slat was done!
The Pax inboard slat is now complete, bar installing the fibreglass tip into the end.