12 Jul 2025 - 2.5 hours

I made the fuel tank stiffeners today. These are attached to the fuel tank skins on the bottom in between the ribs to give a bit more support because the tanks will each hold about 140 pounds of fuel when filled.

Here they are all cut out from the four big sticks that they came in. Then, lots of deburring with the scotch brite wheel to smooth the trimmed edges and round the corners.

I then clecoed them to the tank skins for match drilling. I did this with the skins in the orientation that you see in the picture below, which was dumb because they were all floppy and it was difficult to get the clecos inserted. I should have just cleared off a spot to lay the skins down and it would have been much quicker and easier...

I got both tank skins and stiffeners drilled and then I put the tank baffles on the spars and fit the skins on. This was a bit confusing as the instructions reference a step that has previously been deleted from the instructions because they do some extra part prep at the factory now. Fortunately, Ryan from Ryan Flys does a good job of lamenting this but also clearing things up.

I didn't take a picture of the end state for some reason but the tank skins and baffles are currently on the spars.