Fixed seat belt anchor holes - 1 hour

 One of the issues I have is that the holes in the F-742 seat floor is that the openings for the seat belt anchors are touching (or just about touching) on the forward side. I took an hour to check fit of anchors and seat floors to make sure I didn't have anything wrong. Looking at other build sites, the clearance seems a bit tight on the fwd side.

 

Finished the F-6111 aft skin reinforcing ribs - 5 hours

 I played with the fit of the pilot side F-6111 rib. I managed to get the rim to sit/fit much better after trimming the ends. The bulkhead interferes just a tad at the top of the rib, so I need to do a little careful trimming here. In the end, this is what I finished with. 

This is what the top of the rib is trimmed like.

I began working on installing the right (co-pilot side). Repeating the exact same process as before, start at the bottom and work my way up. The fitting on this side is a tad more tricky than the other side, but its going. The ribs have a real twist in them....like a real good twist. Here is what they end up looking like after final fitting.

In the end, I'm extremely happy with the fit. Not a quick process....but it turned out very nice.

Still feeling like moving forward. I drilled and trimmed the seat belt cable guides.

F-6111 aft skin reinforcing rib - 5 hours

 Fitting these F-6111 aft skin ribs is a bit of a head scratcher. The instructions are not helpful. Doing some research on them the general consensus is to start at the bottom and work your way up. Trimming only to match the angle in the longeron and where the rib meets the bulkhead.

Firstly I carefully drew a centerline down the ribs. The interesting thing is that the rib flange varies in width along the length so I was careful to account for this. Starting at the bottom where the rib meets the longeron, I found that the angle is 42deg. (A piece of paper was used behind the skin and a pen dot through the holes....connect the dots and the angle is found).  I transferred this to the ribs and cut accordingly. 

Next I trimmed the angle at the bottom of the rib, fit it to the skin/longeron, aligned the centerline with the first few holes and drilled the bottom hole.

One by one I started working my way up. Aligning, then drilling one hole and cleco at a time.

At this point the bottom of the rib begins to rub against the longeron. So I will need to think about trimming this down.

As I work my way up, I now need to start trimming the top of the rib to match the angle with the bulkhead. Very much a guess and test situation here. I trimmed a little bit.

Kept drilling and clecoing, one by one.

As I got closer to the top, I trimmed a bit more as needed, and then I began to see where I need to account for the flutting in the bulkhead in two spots.This ends up being a compromise of sorta flattening the 2 flutes, and creating 2 shallow flutes in the F-6111 rib (Too much fluting in the ribs cause the centerline to deflect too much) 

By the end, I am really happy with the fit and I did a little trimming at the bottom of the rib for the longeron. I'm still not satisfied with it and I'll get this trimmed better later. 

Finished the baggage bulkhead - 5 hours

 I started off the build session by fitting the lower bulkhead to the upper bulkhead and drilling the holes for the #8 screws and the associated nutplates.

 

I then began the process of drilling ALL of the #8 holes for the require nutplates. I marked out guide lines as best I could so that the nutplates followed the lines of the bulkhead.

Then came the very tedious process of countersinking and riveting all of the nutplates. I prime all of my nutplates so there is a bit of time eaten up by prep and paint of these.

The top skin went back on as I will need to fit the F-6111 aft skin reinforcing ribs.

Fitting the baggage bulkhead - 6 hours

 I still have a few rivets that I need to finish on the lower center part of the F-706 bulkhead. I was dragging my heels a bit on completing this task. It’s a tricky spot and in my head I was building it to be more difficult than it turned out. 

 

Now I am ready to complete the fitting of the Baggage bulkhead panels. I took some time to confirm everything is nice, square and level. Lots of checking and adjustment but I was finally able to commit to drilling all holes in the lower panel.

Now I need to fit the upper panel. First I need to trace the required radius. I drew the radius on AutoCAD, printed out a template and then traced the radius onto the upper bulkhead.

Once cut, I measured out the openings for the seat belt cables and drilled the holes. Then i flipped the bulkhead over and measured out all of the upper mounting holes. Took some time to finish the seat belt cable openings and other little details.

 

I then fitted the upper bulkhead to the assembly and drilled all mounting holes. 

 

Installing the Static ports and taking care of the to-do list - 2.5 hours

 Since I need to uncleco and remove the top skins to get at all the small outstanding items, now is a good time to install the static ports. I dug out the SafeAir1 kit that I've had for some time. I am choosing to bond the static ports with pro-seal rather than rivet. Seems like a lot of builders do this over riveting them.

Next, I located the 1/4" holes for the static ports somewhat close to the dimensions shown on the drawings (Detail #E/Drawing 28). I maintained the 2" dimension from the longeron, but I adjusted the dimension forward of the bulkhead rivet line from 11/16" to 1 1/8" as the Safeair1 ports are a much larger diameter than the standard Van's ports.

I de-vinyled the areas, scuffed the aluminum, cleaned with MEK. I mixed up some proseal and installed a thin layer on the static port. After installing the port and giving it a 1/4 turn twist, I clamped the ports to the assembly and wiped any excess that tried to ooze out. 

With the static ports taken care of, the next item that I need to get done was to install the lower baggage bulkhead nutplates and drill and install the one rivet on the top of the F-728C angle.

 

Started fitting the Baggage Bulkhead - 2.5 hours

I am ready to start fitting the F-751 baggage bulkhead. I cleco'd in the baggage floors and baggage side covers and celco's in the baggage bulkhead. I started checking the fit, making sure all was sitting correctly. 

 

I wasn't loving the fit...the holes along the F-728A bellcrank channel sit just a bit inboard toward the vertex of the channel, as well I want to make sure the bulkhead is sitting level at the top. A few things may help my cause. I still have some riveting to do at the bottom of the bellcrank channel. As well I still need to install the nutplates for the baggage bulkhead along the bottom of the F-706 bulkhead.