Finished riveting the aft fuse (bottom skin) - 6 hours

I'm not loving the riveting of the aft fuse bottom skin. Skinning the wings was much easier in my opinion. One of the issues I was having is that the back rivet set would like to wander increasing the chance of a poorly set rivet. So I decided to make a rivet guide out of a piece of wood. The wood is drilled such that it allows the cleco adjacent to the rivet I want to set, the perfect distance for my back rivet set to be in the correct position. The result is that it is much easier to keep the rivet set from wandering.

Once I had the makeshift rivet guide figured out, riveting ease and success rates increased dramatically. So I just kept grinding on.

In the end, I'm extremely happy with the shop heads.

More riveting the aft fuse (bottom skin) - 2.5 hours

I putzed at riveting the Aft fuse tonight. Admittedly I am not enjoying this very much. I riveting by myself and its not very easy. I'm staring by riveting the bottom skin and then will work my way up, alternating sides as I go. The difficulty is trying to hold the gun in one hand and the bar in the other at such an awkward  position. After a bit of head scratching, I finally figured out to put the back rivet set on the gun, and use my 3"x 1" tungsten bucking bar as a backing bar. I have to admit the results are extremely good. It still feels odd and sometimes its tough to get the bar nice and tight when your arms start getting further away from your body. But at lease the adjacent cleco gives your fingers/bar something to reference to ensure proper placement.

Started Riveting the Aft Fuse - 2 hours

Spend a very small amount of time on the build. I started the riveting process. I'm dreading this as I have not really riveted in quite some time.

Began assembly of the aft fuselage - 5 hours

Nice big day in the garage today. I started the fuselage assembly with riveting both the F-729B angle and the autopilot servo mounting bracket on the F-729 rib. Rather than squeeze the rivets, I opted to start the set with hand bucking them and then finish with the squeezer. I find that the result is much better and consistent set rivets as the AN470 rivets tend to slump if your not careful about being perfectly centred on the rivet head. The setup for clamping takes some time.


Next I began the long tedious process of cleco'ing the aft fuselage together...Again.


much of the time is taken on trying to get the fuselage perfectly straight.

Primed the exterior mating surfaces onf the Aft Fuselage Skins - 2 hours

Spent a little bit of time priming the mating surfaces on the outside of the fuselage skins. To determine how much to prime, I temporarly clecoed the two pieces together and marked the piece with a sharpie. Then I knew where to mask off. A wipe with MEK, then scuff with maroon scotchbrite and wipe with MEK and then prime.
Only the bottom skins get a little TLC. There is no extra exterior priming on the side skins.

Some closeups for reference.

Debur, Prep, Dimple and Prime Aft Fuselage - 6 hours

Not much in the way of pictures, It’s taken me a couple of evenings to disassemble, debur all the holes (This took some time as a few of the holes gave me some trouble...The F-711 bulkhead holes that were extremely difficult to cleco and a few holes had some nasty burrs) it takes a little extra care to debur. A few holes I buffed with some maroon scotchbrite. Next I broke all the edges with a file and smoothed them with the 3m wheel. I worked the edges that overlap other skins with the edge forming tool. After that I dimpled all the holes with the exception of the F-706 bulkhead holes and the two holes for the rudder stop.

Lastly everything was scrubbed with maroon scotchbrite. Degrease wipe, MEK wipe, Acid wash with Cleanbrite, another MEK wipe and finally prime.

Dimpled and Primed Aft Fuselage Bulkheads - 2 hours

Small day, I deburred and dimpled the bulkheads. Then I touched up the primer after dimpling.