Back to work on the joining of fuselage parts.

i'm getting into the final stages of operation on dimpling and countersinking parts before joining forward and aft fuselage.

In earlier articles, I described that I did something stupid on the aft fuselage rivetting. I already rivetted F-729A bellcrank rib to the F-778 aft bottom skin.
Now that's something you don't want to do !

The result of my mistake is that now I'm facing a dimpling problem on the F-778 aft bottom skin.

The second row of holes that is drilled with joining aft and forward fuselage now became inaccesible to the c-frame or any other dimpling method just because upstanding flange of the F-706B fuselage bulkhead sits in the way and can no longer be removed because of the rivetting.

I personally don't like the 3/32 pop dimpler die set because I find the dimples not to be nicely formed. Therefor, I decided to go for another approach.

I first dimpled as much as I could with the pneumatic squeezer for as far as I could get the C yoke underneath the F706 bottom flange.
It requires patience and great control of the pneumatic lever in order not to press a hole in the bottom skin if the bottom male die isn't fully aligned.
I managed to do that without problems.

For the other dimples that are located more toward the middle, I used another method.

First I positioned the full aft section on a low mount near the floor.

I then used the bottom holding mechanism of my c-frame and screwed that to a number of would blocks that would align with the height of my bottom skin.
The male dice on the bottom, the female dice on the c-frame top part.

Then positioned the wood blocks so the male dice sits nicely in a hole and wacked the female die on it with the plastic mallet. The dimples look good now. Definitly much better then with the pop dimpler dies.

Once all dimples were made, I started re-assembling aft and forward section again.

The only reason for doing this is because it has been so long in time since I did this that I want to make sure everything is done and prepared correctly prior to priming.

Feels good seeing the fuselage coming together again.

Now the only thing left is to countersink the 4 holes in the front of F704A and the two holes on the side skins where the tank attach brackets are located.