Even more riveting of the fuse - 5 hours

 Slow and steady wins the race. Started in on riveting the side skins to the seat ribs. Its tricky to get in there and make sure you are clear of the nutplates, but the rivets are textbook. 

Once the seat rib riveting was complete, had enough gas to start the forward rivets on the corner ribs. 

 

 

More rivetting of the fuse - 4.5 hours

 On a roll with bucking rivets. I started working forward of the center spar section. I riveted part of the F-713 longeron and F-713 stiffeners. Its tedious work doing it solo but awfully rewarding. All in all the riveting has gone extremely well.

Final fitting of fuse skins and started riveting - 5.5 hours

Overall the fitment when clecoing the fuse back together is really good. The fit however could be a bit tighter on the pilot side where the side fuse meets the corner rib. I can probably slide a dime or penny in a slight gap between the two. If I cleco it...the gap disappears but it doesn't sit well with me doing that. 

So I unclecoed most of the pilot side skin, Re-levelled the saw horses and cleco'd the side skin back on. And bingo...fit is fantastic. The skins on both sides fit nice and tight with the corner ribs on both sides. 

Once that was done, I started working on the fit of the side skins with the seat ribs. A bit of clecoing, re-clecoing, I inserted AD4 rivets by hand in a few of the holes which helped massage the fit better 

I am happy and ready to rivet. I started in by riveting the center spar section (F-704) on both sides

Begin assembly of the fuselage - 4.5 hours

 I am excited to finally be able to begin the assembly of the fuselage. It seems like I've been working on this part all year. Oh right...I have been. 

To start I fitted the F-719 stiffeners to the firewall. Which turns out its very interesting setup to rivet solo.  Hard to hold it all tight, at the correct angle and use the pneumatic squeezer.   

 The rest of the evening was spent assembling and clecoing the fuselage together. Fortunately it went together much more smoothly this round then previous attempts. I'm reasonably pleased with the fit. I think I want to readjust the fit on the pilot side where the side skin meets the F-623 corner ribs.  

Final fitting of the landing gear weldments - 6 hours

 After reading up on the forums and blogs, Now is a good time to check fitment of the landing gear weldments with the centre spar (F-704) . Once I assemble the fuse making adjustments to the landing gear become much more difficult.

First I drilled out the rivets for the three nutplates in the forward spar ends. I noticed on initial fitment, that these will get in the way later. Once the weldments are permanently installed, it will be super easy to install the nutplates....again 

Now begins a very very slow process of fitting the weldments to the center section. The instructions specifically indicate that holes may be filed a bit open to allow the bolts to fit. The process is slow since I test fit, remove, file, test fit, remove, file, over and over again until all bolts fit.

I am extremely careful to not file the close tolerance bolt holes if i can avoid it. So I started with the placing those bolts first securely and then working/fitting all the other holes.

Once I was happy with the weldment fit, I was ready to assemble the F-704 center spar to the center section in preparation to fit the fuse all back together.

Installing the seat belt anchors - 1.5 hour

Small build night tonight. But a little bit is better than nothing right?

I spent an hour installing the seat belt anchors in the center section. Took a bit longer than it should purely because one of the anchors on the passenger side needed to be trimmed to fit the seat rib. Guess that the fit has changed a tiny fit between drilling and final riveting. 

I used a spacer to help align the anchors. I didn't want to wreck a perfectly good nut so I used a ton of washers so I didn't engage the nylon lock portion.   lol

Riveting the F-706 bulkhead assembly to the aft fuselage - 6 hours

 I decided to fit and rivet the F-706 bulkhead assembly to the aft fuselage before I fit the entire fuse. Reading some of the builders logs, seems that this has worked out well. When I fitted the bulkhead, I noticed that I have a bit of interference on a rib flange with one of the new dimpled holes in the fuselage skin. 

I marked the interference on both sides removed the bulkhead assembly and then trimmed a relief hole with the dremel. Then refitted the assembly. 

Once happy with the fit, I riveted the F-729 bellcrank rib to the aft fuselage. Quick note, avoid riveting the F-728 bellcrank channel to the aft fuse if you can. I riveted it now, only realising I wasn't supposed to (like sooo many other builders). I am not worried though, I have an alligator squeezer that will allow me to rivet the F-728 angle to the rib without removing the rib.

The accessibility for riveting the F-729 rib to the F-707 bulkhead is crazy. I managed to buck the middle hole, but ended up using cherry max rivets for the top and bottom holes. So frustrating.  

Next, I decided to rivet the F-715 seat ribs to the center section. Again reading the build logs, this seems to be a common practice. Accessibility is much easier now. I struggled setting the top most rivets at the F-705 bulkhead. Extremely tricky and poor access. I opted for cherrymax rivets here. (I did try to buck them but did a horrible job). 

 I then riveted the F-715 seat ribs to the bottom skin, which went extremely well.

I now fitted the longerons into the aft fuse assembly.