I noticed that I haven't installed the 3 remaining rivets in the F-705 bulkhead. It was a bit of a head shaking moment, simply because these rivets need to be dimpled and I hadn't done that yet. Mental note...dimple these 3 before you finish the forward top skin.
Before I dismantle the baggage floors and the temporary wood structure for the tail cone. I need to start getting the rudder cables installed in the aft section of the fuselage. I though this would be a bit more difficult than it is. The cables are simply installed through the fuselage from the rear. The only item that you need to pay attention to is that the plastic grommets need to be installed on the cable before you thread the cable through each bulkhead. The clevis takes a little bit of force to slip through the grommet, so doing this is easier when the grommet is not installed in the bulkhead.
Not the most fun trying to finish riveting the Forward Top Skin. Working solo, this is a bit more tricky than one would think. I managed to set all remaining rivets in the baggage bulkhead as well as set the F-6111 ribs. One really tough rivet to set was the rivet common with the F-6111 rib and the F-705 bulkhead. The area is extremely tight and getting a bucking bar in there is just brutal. I tried setting a AD3 rivet a few times, but it just wasn't setting correctly. In the end I just had to use an MK-319-BS rivet for those two locations.
My buddy mike was able to spare some time and helped my finish riveting (Well…nearly finish) riveting the forward Top Skin. I was able to crawl inside the fuselage on my wood platform and hold a bucking bar with Mike on the gun. Overall it went really well…We got all of the rivets aft of the baggage bulkhead, Getting those tricky rivets set with the bulkhead tabs is a bit interesting. Got the tabs flat by starting with a back rivet set…Finished riveting by normal bucking with a rigid mushroom set. Mike also helped my set a few of the rivets at the top of the baggage bulkhead. Due to the multiple layers and tabs, the backrivet method was needed to get things tight there.
Small build session. I prep’d the vans stock ADAHRS tray for priming. I also touched up some scratches I had in the primer under the top skin from when I was driving some of the rivets previously.
I started in on riveting the F-7112 top skin. I had asked for a neighbours help with riveting. As I want to rivet from the middle out to the ends, I do need a little help with getting the rivets set. I have my wood floor set up in the fuselage, so I crawled in and laid on my back with the bucking bar, and my neighbour used the gun. I'm really happy with how it turned out.
After experiencing how relatively easy accessing the area behind the storage bulkhead is with my custom floor boards I want to close in the fuselage sooner rather than later. Now that I have all the edges of the F-7112 aft top skin marked out. I removed the top skin and marked off all the areas. I then scuffed all the mating surfaces with scotchbrite, cleaned with MEK and then primed.
