You guessed it, more nutplates - 5 hours

Today I finally managed to finish off installing all the nutplates. Just a few one legged nutplates left to do on the luggage ribs and the crotch bracket. Setting went well, but getting the nutplates on the aft crotch bracket was interesting. I tried to squeeze the rivets, but soon figured out that it wasn’t going to work. I ended up setting them with the back rivet set and the squeezer.

Next I was ready to assemble the crotch strap brackets to the seat ribs. I bucked these rivets with the gun and bar. Slight change-up, I put shop heads to the outside. Turned out excellent!


Next item on the to do list was to dimple the F-704 Bulkhead/Spar. I dimpled the aft spar flange and then cleaned and primed it (as it will mat to the bottom skin).



 Next I needed to address the forward spar flange. I carefully figured out which holes do not get dimpled and taped those off. Checked, checked and rechecked. Then dimpled the remaining holes.



Now the last nasty step. Since I am building the 7A, I need to counter the top of the first five holes on each side of the flange to allow for a double flush rivet. Good luck getting a countersink cage in these holes, so I tried doing them by hand. It took a while but I managed to get all holes (5 per side).



Next I primed the bottom of the flange.