Fuselage

The time has come to put the bottom forward skin in place. After riveting the two center bottom floor stiffeners in place, and riveting the side skins all the way up to the F-902 bulkhead, it leaves just enough flexibility in the side skins to pull them out of the way to apply firewall sealant. The method allows you to mix and appy the sealant all at once in one batch, rather than doing the side skins first, and later on doing the bottom skin. I bought the small tube of sealant, and it's really only good for one use. Besides, I don't want to mess with this stuff more than one session if I can help it.

I mixed it up with the internal plunger for quite a while to make sure it was mixed as good as possible. Then I pushed the material out into a cup, so I could mix it some more and then use a brush to apply it. I cut the bristles on the brush down to about 1/2" long, so they are good and stiff. This stuff is like rubber.

It took a while to work with the stiff rubbery stuff, but it does smear out nicely. Once applied to both sides and the bottom firewall stiffener, I put the bottom skin in place and clecoed it all together. I used a cleco in every hole all around the firewall. I'll leave them in place until I can get some help riveting this all together.

Now I need some help riveting!

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