Sept 1, 2002  2.5 hours

We riveted the center section skin to the skeleton this evening.  Linda came out and did the riveting while I bucked.  I couldn't decide exactly how I wanted to do this.  I thought about turning the center section up on the edge but was afraid that it would somehow twist.  We finally decided to sit it off the table and on the floor.  Then I crawled up under the structure to buck and Linda drove the rivets.  This worked out fairly well.  The end result was good, just a little back pain for me.  

This is the center section with the skin riveted to the skeleton.  I laid a quilt down and crawled up under the skeleton to do the bucking.

Then turned back over and on the table.

Sept 2, 2002 4 hours

The next step is to add the floors to the skeleton.  I drilled all the holes to final size. One note, I did have to remove the baggage floors in order to get to the ribs while attaching the center section to the rear fuselage.

Next was to add the longerons to the rear fuselage.

Then turn the tail cone upside down and slide the center section in place.  I needed a little help to get this all in place and Linda and Katie both came out and lent a hand with this. The real pain was getting the center section skin on top while getting the ribs under the tail cone skin.

Starting to get a room full.

Next add the center section side skin.  No brainer here but I did spend a little time during this to make sure everything was level.

Finished up the afternoon by installing the side steps. I cut the hole in the skin before clecoing it in place.  I then trimmed the 623 to allow the tube of the side step to slide through the hole previously drilled into the baggage ribs

And finally a picture of what it looks like at the end of the day.  

Sept 3 - 7, 2002  7 hours

Sometime this week I accomplished the following:

Made the conical bend at the lower aft end of the F-770.  This is where the side skin transitions to the the bottom skin.

This is how I did made the bend.

Here's what it looks like after the bend.

Fluted and drilled the arm rests in place.

Drilled the skins to the longerons.  There were a lot of holes here and I spent 2-3 hours drilling these as I was being anal about keeping the longerons aligned exactly with the top of the skin. 

Sept 8, 2002   3 hours

The objective today was getting the firewall bulkhead in place.  First step in the plans is the make the F-704-L straps.  The plans call for these to be 2 1/16 inches long but I left them as 3" as they were originally provided.  It looks like it will only catch an additional hole on the 704 bulkhead.

Then I slid the firewall bulkhead into the skeleton with the WD-602 brackets resting on the longerons.  I added the F-772 bottom skin to the skeleton as well. 

One thing of note here was one of the longerons didn't have enough twist in it to match with the WD-602 bracket.  I removed the clecos from the skin to the longerons from the F-704 bulkhead forward.  I then clamped a piece of angle to the skin and longeron for about 4-5 inches forward of the 704 bulkhead.  I used a crescent wrench on the forward half of the longeron while holding the angle straight to add some twist to the longeron.  End result was great.  The longerons fit the WD-602 very well.

This got me to the point that the plans say take a break for a few minutes.  So I did.