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.

 

Primed the ADAHRS tray. More riveting the forward top skin - 2.5 hours

 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 to start riveting some of the rivets on the right side of the top/skin/longeron that I could reach solo….Can do much. This is really a two person job.

 

Started riviting the F-7112 Top Skin - 5 hours

 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. 

 

Prepping for the install of the F-7112 aft top skin - 1.5 hours

 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.

Fitted the forward fuselage assembly - 2 hours

 Today I was keen on getting the forward top skin installed on the fuselage. I need to mark out the holes/alignment for the F-7105 center rib and in my opinion the only way to get it set correctly is to install the entire upper forward fuselage assembly. Once The assembly went together. I used a small square on the top of the firewall angle and set/marked the F-7105 center rib.

Riveted the F-695 fwd fuse gussets - 1 hour

I finally received an email back from Vans support about my question on using cherry max for the 10 forward rivets in the F-695 gusset that I was reluctant to set solo. Knowing how critical of an area it was...I do not want to mess this up.

While the email did not say no to the cherry rivets, it was not a great email. Perhaps it wasn't a fuzzy feel good email that I was hoping for, Maybe it was my mood, maybe it was the way I read the email, but it did nothing to alleviate my anxiety about riveting this area. I was soo pissed off. Out of shear anger I went out into garage and tried to set the rivets solo. Worst case....I can drill the bad ones out and use cherry max.

I used the AN470 solid rivets and by a complete stroke of luck, all of them set extremely well. Amazing cause I had to use the angled portion of the bucking bar which is always sketchy for me.