Starting with the 708 Bulkhead (this is the one aft of the seats bulkhead). The plan says you should NOT rivet the 728 channel (that is the vertical piece), not sure why but let’s leave that clecoed for now.

The next bulkhead is considerably smaller and also should not be completely riveted. Riveting these bulkheads is easy, because I can use the squeezer and it’s just a few rivets.

Next Bulkhead (710) just needs an Aluminum angle attached to it.

The last two Bulkheads are more work, because they consist of two parts. Especially the 711 is more work, since the Horizontal stabilizer (from the Empennage) will be attached to this Bulkhead. Because of the two parts I could only partly use the squeezer.

The next day my Dad helped me with riveting the two small Bulkheads to the tail bottom skin. This skin is thick, because of the tail-wheel construction.
Also this part didn’t fit very well and it required a lot of trimming.

Because I’m building a tail-dragger (tail-wheel model instead of a nose-wheel version), there is some extra work involved for said tail-wheel.

Turns out to be a lot of work, because we spent 3 hours just trimming, fitting and clecoing the tail-wheel bar to both Bulkheads and the skin.
Looks like not much was done, but I was happy with the result.

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets: 52/2 (2019-08-24)

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 0/0 (2019-08-25)

Video

This mainly consists of deburring, scuffing (with Scotch Brite pads), sanding the edges and degreasing.
There are a lot of parts to prepare and prime, so it took an entire day to do all the work.

It’s not only the Bulkhead parts, but also the J-channels (stringers) and the Longerons we bend previously.

After priming, I started by assembling the first Bulkhead of the tail cone.

Again using the squeezer wherever possible.

Almost done, however some parts should NOT be riveted at this time, as it seriously complicates assembly. The plans are clear so no worries.

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 0/0 (2019-08-11)

Time: 2 Hours, Rivets: 21/0 (2019-08-17)

Video

This bulkhead is the one immediately after the seat bulkhead. They are numbered F-706 to F-712 (which is the last one).
Almost all of them require enlarging the rudder cable holes.

I found that there are more drawings related to these bulkheads, so just looking at drawing 21 is not enough.

I’m not sure why yet, but this bulkhead requires some extra holes related to attaching the static pressure sensors.

Some edges of the preformed bulkhead parts are sharp and require proper filing.

I was looking for extra aluminum angle parts but couldn’t find them.

There are a few very long parts, but I was afraid to use it, because they came with the wing-box and I knew there were parts that should NOT be cut.
I checked the Van’s Aircraft Forum and double checked with my fellow builder Joop and indeed, except for the two Longerons all other parts are fair game.

So let’s get the hacksaw.
At the rear part of the fuselage, there are several bulkheads that attach the Empennage.

For that reason there are strong stiffeners and doublers.

I use inexpensive metric drills, which are smaller then the indicated size to drill through the Aluminum. Then I use the correct Imperial size for the final size. This way I keep my precious drills pristine.

Turns out the F-706 bulkhead requires some contraption behind it, to hold the Elevator bell-crank.

Next time I will continue with bending the longerons and after that, I hope the heat wave in the Netherlands is gone, so I can start priming these parts.

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets: 0/0 (2019-07-18)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets: 0/0 (2019-07-20)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets: 0/0 (2019-07-21)

Video

The Main Bulkhead was easy, because there were only a few parts (but I repeat myself). But even with a few parts you can screw things up.

This is how it looks if you teared of the head from a screw attached in the Main Bulkhead. Somehow I gained restrained, because normally I get into “rage-mode”. It helped that I wasn’t the one breaking it. Typically I tend to over-stress screw and bolts all the time.

There was not enough screw protruding, so loosening it with pliers failed. The solution was to drill a smaller hole in the screw from the other side (platenut).

Using a threadtap we could screw it out again, without damaging the thread in the platenut. WD-40 is your friend.

What I found baffling is that one of the holes, attaching the Front and Aft side of the Main Bulkhead, was too small. We looked at it for some minutes and decided to enlarge it to the correct size.

Once all the nuts are torqued to the right moment, we use torque seal to indicate the nut is torqued and provide a visual indicator if the nut somehow gets loose in the future.

Then the second Bulkhead, starting with the seat back rest. Luckily we could use the squeezer.

What’s really handy is that I constructed drawers in my table, which I can use to “clamp” parts, so they are at a comfortable height to rivet.
Yip there are the dumb-founded faces again! Yet another Homer Simpson moment, Doh!

This time nothing broken, but we forgot to set a rivet in the bottom stiffener before riveting them together. No way we can set them and drilling out the others is not an option. It’s a lot of work, I don’t have enough of these special long rivets and most importantly drilling out rivets does not make it better.
We decided that the rivet is “not crucial” and later I came to the conclusion that I can still use a blind rivet.

I’m not sure why it looks like I have to hand-power squeeze the rivet. It’s probably my facial expression of concentration.

The hinge blocks of the flaps need some precision drilling, so we use the drillpress, to make the holes nice and clean.

Time: 6 Hours, Rivets: 269/0

Video

On the bottom side of the Bulkhead is quite a massive stiffener rod, that will probably attach the aft part of the Wings. Also the Flap control rod hinges are attached here.

There are no pre-drilled holes is the stiffeners, so extra care must be taken to align the parts.

The seat belt (harness) attach brackets are also connected to the stiffener. These brackets are powder-coated steel and require some trimming to prevent them from interfering with some bottom ribs.
The backrest of the seats are “adjustable”, however I didn’t understand the options so I made the backrest holder too small.

I figured that out when I flow with Erik in his RV-7 to the AOPA/NVAV Fly-In in Seppe. I solved it by trimming the holder just a little bit. It will probably give me some headache in the future when I’m installing the seats. However I was planning to do something completely different with the seats anyway, so no worries there.

The Rudder cables are going through the Bulkheads via a considerable big hole with a bushing. The pre-drilled (tool-hole) is too small to directly use the Unibit. I use the 1/4 inch drill enlarge the hole and then use the Unibit.

I also drilled some extra holes for electrical wiring. As an aside, using an electric drill with a quick release system is great. I just hold the quick release and press the button, so the machine unlocks the drill. Works great for “normal” drills, not so much for Unibits. The Unibit still turns a few rounds, just enough to scrape some skin from your hand. Somehow I only stop bad practices after heavy bleeding. Every time I just nick-it, it doesn’t work as a warning. Well this time it did.
Unfortunately these “teachings” wear off after some time and I repeat the same mistake.
Apparently my drive for efficiency conquers the pain of injury (or I’m just a lazy asshole).

Aha the high note to plane building: deburring. Not only boring, but also brutal for the hands and bad for the back. Although the stool helps a lot.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 0/0 (2019-06-23)

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 0/0 (2019-06-26)

Video