Fuselage

Over the last week-and-a-half, with a few short sessions here and there, I managed to prime the bottom skin for the center section, and accomplish some other details here and there.

On a certain nice day when it wasn't raining or stormy, I managed to take this skin outside and prime it. It's now ready to go! I hope to be putting some rivets into it soon.

I decided, after giving it a lot of thought, to re-make the F-623A attach straps on the forward ends of the F-623 ribs. I just couldn't see carving out a place on the straps for clearance for a rivet tail, when it would be so much better to make the strap a bit wider and encompass all the holes in the area. Rivet it all, as I see it.

Here are the old straps, the two in the center, showing that part of it had to be cut out to make room for a rivet tail. Next to them are the new, wider straps, that encompass all the rivets in the area.

Here it is, fitted in place on the F-623 rib. When this is riveted together, it will be much better, don't you think? Maybe this is a trivial issue, but I like it a lot better. It only took me about 20 minutes to make these new straps out of some scrap material on hand.

My good friend Jack Jordan was here with his lovely wife Cheryl today, for lunch and a visit. While the ladies were talking in the house, Jack came out and helped hold the F-704 bulkheads for me so I could finish dimpling the bottom flanges for skin rivets. I don't know how I would have been able to hold these heavy bulkheads with one hand and run the DRDT-2 dimpler with the other, by myself. Thanks for the helping hand, Jack! These babies are now ready for riveting.

Jack also helped me while I finished drilling the F-710 bulkhead for the 5/8" holes needed for the snap-bushings for the rudder cables. I somehow overlooked this detail when assembling the bulkheads, and now it's all riveted into the aft fuselage. Jack held a scrap piece of sheet aluminum against the inside of the skin while I held the drill with both hands and ran the unibit through the hole to enlarge it, just in case the bit made contact with the side skin. I didn't want any damage to the skin. The angle of the skin to the bulkhead is such that the unibit comes dangerously close to it. If you're working on your F-710 bulkhead, don't forget this detail! This would be much easier to do before this is all riveted together, but we got it done nonetheless. It feels good to have this little detail taken care of. Once again, thanks, Jack!

Hmmm... a while later, I discovered why I overlooked this detail. Nothing is said about this in the plans. It is indicated on the drawing, however, but you have to look close. It's just a little arrow referring to a note about the holes. No wonder I missed it. I have to learn to study the plans more closely and not miss any of the tiny details.

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