- Going through a rough ride but between the thunderstorms and lightning, I'm trying to get some more work done on the tail section. All parts were primed earlier and now it's rivetting time again. There's quite a bit of rivetting to do on the tail bulkheads, but it's all pretty straightforward and fun. 

First, I started rivetting the F-729B angle to the F-729A bellcrack rib. These days, I'm very lightly sanding my primed pieces with wet sandpaper and it gives a much smoother finish. It also keeps the accumulated gauges of material closer to the prescribed rivet lengths on the plans.

 The easiest way to rivet this was to clamp the part in the vise and squeeze the AD4 rivets with the pneumatic squeezer.

 Nice rivets.

 The F-728B angle and F-728A belcrank rib should not be rivetted yet. 

Next in line is rivetting the F-730 reinforcement plate to the F-706B fuselage bulkhead and the F-729 assembly. Again, the F-728 remains unrivetted.

First clecoed all together including the F-729C angle.

 I had to do some tuning on the opening for the electricity lines and removed a bit to give good clearance for the one-leg MS 21051-L08 nutplate. This isn't indicated on DWG-26 but you'll find it on DWG 29 section A-A and step 2 F747-L/R installation. The side of the nutplate interferes slightly with the belcrank rib F-729 rib flange.

 I did the some for the rivet head as they would be to close to the flange. Here is how it looks like after modification

 little notching also on the F-73 plate for the nutplate.

 started rivetting.

Front side

 

Finished the F-730 reinforment plate rivetting for now.

Then clecoed the whole F-706 fuselage bulkhead together.

Next up is rivetting the F-706A-R side channel to the F-706B bottom bulkhead. This is actually more tricky than it seems. It's imported that both pieces are well clamped.
Watch carefully which holes to rivet. There's only 5 that you should do now.

 Same thing on the other side.

You should not rivet the top side of the bulkhead yet. This will be done later. I knew it and still blew it, so had to remove them again. dumb dumb, but no harm done and holes are still nice.

 Next bulkhead to rivet, F-707. Very easy. Just couple of AD4's that join both sides.

 Nice heads formed with the squeezer.

 Done

 Next in row, F-708 bulkhead. More of the same joining work.

And again, nicely squeezed rivets.

The assembled the F-710. Angle F-710B is rivetted on the F-710 bulkhead.

 

view from the top

View from the front

F-711 requires some more assembly work. Here, we bring F-711 A and B together and attach the F-711 C bars with the F-711D angle.

Don't rivet the bottom 2 holes from the bars yet (will be used to drill the tailwheel fork) and also don't rivet the angle yet.

Clecoed it all together.

That's where I left off on this session. More next time.