Completed painting of the interior and removed masking tape - 5 hours

 Finally finished the interior paint. Then came the very long task of removing the all the masking tape. I'm quite happy on how to turned out.

Finish prep and painted the interior cabin area - 10 hours

 Huge long day on the build today. I finished masking off the firewall area of the fuselage.

The cabin area is ready to paint. Before I did that, I wiped all of the interior down with Acetone and then did a final spray of epoxy primer. This allows for all exposed rivet heads to have a coat of primer

After a couple of hours the final 2K single stage paint is ready to spray. The air is calm and warm...its a perfect day to paint. 

 

Starting prep for interior cabin paint - 4 hours

 One item that is high on the to-do list is to finish the painting of the interior cabin area. The temperatures are starting to fall as we approach fall,and I plan on painting outdoors. I need to get into it. 

For my particular build...I've help off final paint until after assembly. That means I need to mask off a lot of components. ...So much masking tape.

Finished the remaining rivets in the F-705 bulkhead - 1 hour

 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. 

Installing the rudder cables - 2.5 hours

 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.

I do not want to install the rudder cables through the forward cabin area until I've painted the cabin. So I managed to find a couple of linen bags at the dollar store. I could roll up the cables and slip them into the bags to protect them. I can then place them in the tail cone until the painting is done. 

Finally finished the Forward Top Skin Riveting - 4 hours

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.

 

Nearly finished the riveting of the forward Top Skin - 4 hours

 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.