Finished riveting the fuse and Flipped the Canoe! - 6 hours

 A big day in the garage but hit a major milestone. I started this morning working on the seat back brace, but after lunch I decided to push through the riveting of the fuselage. All that I needed to do was to finish all of the rivets around the F-706 bulkhead. I was really concerned about this area for the bends/curves at the bottom of the fuse. They weren't the easiest, but they went surprisingly well. Managed to get all rivets set extremely well. My head/arms/ body all were contorted in every position to get to these rivets but I did it.

(A huge thank-you to my buddy Mike who was able to help me rivet via Zoom meeting as we are in a pandemic and lock down....without his 'advice' I couldn't have done any of this).

 And now to the milestone!!! I was able to flip the canoe!! Ahh feels so good to reach this point. 

Just in case you were wondering how much time of spent on the project. Total build Hobbs - 2203.5 hours. 

I count my time as "Garage Time" not "Tool Time". So basically from the time I walk into the garage until I leave the garage. This includes setup and cleanup. I typically put all tools away and sweep up after I am done. only on huge jobs do I leave everything out for the next day.

Finished fabricating the F-638 seat back brace - 2.5 hours

I need to drill the holes in the F-638 seat back brace. The plans call for 2 1/4" holes but I don't have that size of hole saw. I do have a 2" hole saw that cuts holes a tad larger....more like 2 1/8". So for me this is good enough. Using scrap MDF as a backer plate. I located the center of the holes and drilled to #40 and clecoed the brace to the MDF. 

 I now have a stable platform to drill the large 2" holes and not have to worry about the pilot bit 'walking'. 

All holes are easily drilled. Next I drew out the dimensions on the ends of the seat brace and cut them according to the plans. Used aviation snips for a rough-cut and then used the sanding station to finish cuts up to the line. Final edge cleaning by 3M wheel.