Still a lot of loose ends inside the Fuselage. After priming, I start with riveting the Canopy Decks to the longeron.
During drilling I already found out that it was very tight and would be hard to get the bucking bar in there. Which turned out to be true.
However with some help of small pieces of wood I could guide the bucking bar to the correct location.
Now I’m wondering how the hell I can rivet the forward top skin. Because with the Canopy Decks in place those rivet holes are ‘really’ hard to reach. We’ll see what happens when we get there.
My first (naive) idea was that I could rivet the Crotch Straps ‘normally’ and not use the accompanying blind rivets. Although it is my goal to limit the amount of blind rivets, It’s just not possible. Maybe if I would have riveted them before attaching the ribs to the bottom skin. Most probably I would have not be able to rivet those without blind rivets. In that case this is the lesser evil.
To fasten the baggage compartment divider to the tail cone, I need to install nutplates. Most of them are placed in the bulkhead. A few are in the vertical channel just behind the bulkhead.
All rivets are set flush, to enable a nice placement of the divider to the bulkhead. I use the squeezer to rivet the nutplates flush. I’m always anxious that I ‘squeeze’ the thread of the nutplate, but his never happens. Maybe because of my fear.
The bulkhead gussets are also riveted at this time. The inner two rivets are flush, because they are again covered by the divider. The outside one isn’t, so I use a ‘normal’ (non-flush) rivet.
There are two side panels in the baggage compartment (on either side). The aft one is riveted with the floor panels to the ribs and bulkheads. However the forward side panel should be removable, in order to have access to the Flap controls. Here I’m riveting a nutplate to the aft panel, so I can later use it to screw the forward panel to it.
The floor panels can be riveted to the ribs, bulkhead and these aft side panels. For now I cleco them, because they can always be riveted, so I keep my options open.
Here are the two forward side panels. They fit nicely with the floor panels and the aft side panels.
Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 114/2 (2020-01-08)
Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 54/1 (2020-01-11)
Time: 2 Hours, Rivets: 17/1 (2020-01-12)
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