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. 

 

 

Started riveting the forward fuselage pieces - 8 hours

 Now that the primer has had a day to cure. I started in on riveting. First piece was to rivet nutplates onto the F-684 gussets and then rivet the gussets to the firewall. Admittedly I didn't get all of the rivets pointed the same direction as after the first three, I then noticed I didn't have enough clearance to get the squeezer in there. Oh well, not a big deal at all and nobody is ever going to look at it. 

Next step I need to install the six AN426AD4-9 rivets at the bottom of the firewall that I didn't install originally (As I didn't have enough rivets).

I installed the nutplates on the F-902/F-724/F-722 bulkheads. I riveted the F-7101/F-902 assembly. Then riveted on the fabricated flanges on the F-724 bulkhead. 

Next I riveted the F-719 skin stiffener and clips

Still on a roll, I riveted the F-704H side plate onto the F-770 side skins.

 

More Priming - 10 hours

 Another big day of priming. I touched up some of the pieces I didn't get good enough yesterday and then I primed the floor skin and the side skins. I am absolutely chemical-ed out!

 

Started priming - 10 hours

 Ready to start priming and it was a huge day. For the cockpit I had decided to change things up and go with a 2-part epoxy primer. No doubt the cockpit is going to take a lot of abuse so why not toughen things up. The prep was extremely long. Wash, scrub, acid etch, so on