Baggage door a little warpy…

[RV6-KPTW]

I finished my baggage door (Section 34) and when I mount it in the frame, I see that the bottom of the door is a little off fair. I wonder if drilling out the rivets on the close out panel and doing a little manipulation on the frame will work?

The photo is attempting to illustrate that there is a bow fore to aft that is out a 1/16th at the top and an 1/8th at the bottom. I would not attempt a fix if it was off fair at 1/16 but I think the 1/8th portion is quite noticeable.

Any experiences here that I might find helpful?

Thanks

 

[Fenderbean]

Totally just asking, but your dimples seem larger to than they should be. It looks like your set rivets are down in a hole, specifically the ones along the bottom?

 

[RNB]

My flying 10

 

[gkochers]

My first door was pretty bad. Built a second one that was only marginally better. I took a hand seamer and lightly bent the edge along the bottom of the door too better match the fuselage skin. After looking at some other finishes -10s, I decided mine was not so bad.

 

[lr172]

i replaced a few rivets with new holes to pull the alignment a bit, but mostly it was bending/adjusting the skin overhang to get alignment. mine came out looking pretty good. doubt many 10 baggage doors are perfect. i believe i dervited part of the skin / longeron area and added spacers as well, but can't really remember.

 

[ERushing]

The baggage door is a flat surface. The fuselage is a slight compound curve. Flat surface on a curved surface won’t fit perfectly. With the stock baggage door, you need to compromise and get as good a fit as you can.

I, embarrassingly, built 3 baggage doors because I wasn’t happy with the fit on the first two. On the last version, I altered the frame slightly to pull the lower/ aft corner inboard just a bit. I’m very happy with the fit now!

 

[jacoby]

The baggage door is a flat surface. The fuselage is a slight compound curve. Flat surface on a curved surface won’t fit perfectly. With the stock baggage door, you need to compromise and get as good a fit as you can.

It's actually kinda worse than that. The fuselage is supposed to be curved top and bottom of the door but the longeron bending guide has you bend it flat above the baggage door. You actually need to add some curve to the longeron to match the baggage door. The lower side of the fuselage does have the curve in it.

There isn't a good way to "fix" the door because the door frame itself has the curves in it.

 

[tldavis]

For me it took a few mallet taps to get the aft edge to line up with the fuselage. But be careful with that step. The lower edge was out about 1/8 because the door didn’t match the curve of the fuselage. That got fixed with multiple passes of a seamer. It isn’t perfect but when finished all of the edges are flush within 1/32. I considered that a win and stopped massaging. Good for at least 1/8 knot efficiency improvement I’m sure.