Fuselage

Today I spent all my time drilling hundreds and hundreds of holes. Okay, okay... so I didn't count them all. But it sure seems like about that many. I started where I left off last night, drilling the skins to the longerons. You have to take care here to make sure the flange of the longeron is flush with the edge of the skin. So it requires careful clamping. The longerons are beefy angle stock, so each hole takes more than a few moments to drill. I kept my Boe-Lube handy, adding a drop to the drill bit after every few holes. I did a little on one side, then moved to the other side, working my way from the tail forward.

Here's the right side, almost all done! The longeron is drilled all the way foward to the F-704 bulkhead.

The skins are also drilled to the bulkheads. Above is the F-706 bulkhead and intersection where the aft fuse was joined to the center section. I started in the middle and drilled all the holes across the bottom and down each side to the longeron. Ahead are the F-705 and F-704 bulkheads. The bottom skin is riveted to those, but I drilled down each side to the longeron.

I also drilled all the holes in the skins to the F-715 outer seat ribs. The drilling of the forward side skins is now completed all the way forward to the F-704 bulkhead. This pretty much wraps up the center section part of the construction manual, although I still have to drill the 1-1/2" holes in these skins for the steps. I'll be starting on the Forward Fuselage section next. I feel like another mini-milestone has been reached! However, I think I'll hold off on celebrating until I "flip the canoe" back upright.

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