Wednesday Oct 9th, 2002  1.5 hours

I had a men's group from church over last night and talked a couple of the guys into helping me split the center section back away from the rear fuselage.  Tonight I removed the longerons from the rear fuselage and de-burred/dimpled the rear fuselage and the center skins.

Friday, Oct 10, 2002  2 hours

Countersunk the longerons and spent time cleaning up and double checking that everything was ready to start re-assembly.

Saturday Oct 11, 2002   11 hours

This was a marathon day but man did I get a lot accomplished.  I started the day by priming the longerons.  This proved very interesting.  I didn't want to try to get them back down into the basement to the spray booth due to their length so I decided to use the rattle can.  I also wanted this to be primed well so I used the etching solution that I normally use.  Well, the rattle can is a self etching primer.  The two etching solutions didn't like each other and the primer just pealed off when it dried.  I took some MEK and wiped the longerons off well and re-primed and all was well.  After the primed longerons were dry, I re-installed them to the rear fuselage.

Here's where I usually prime parts but the longerons won't fit.  This is all the frame parts that are primed and ready to go.

Next step was to re-install the center section to the rear fuselage.  Linda and Katie are in Alabama visiting family so I was on my own.  This made for an interesting couple of minutes as I balanced the center section in place on the longerons / saw horses.  The center section is not that heavy to handle by yourself, it is just awkward.  But it worked.

Next I re-built the frame that supports the firewall. After triple checking that all was in place and aligned correctly, I FINALLY riveted something in place.  There are a couple of pieces that need to be riveted before the side skins are set in place.

The frame clecoed back together.

Here's the first rivets in a long time.  This brace has to be riveted to the firewall before the skins are re-installed.

The other side. I did go back and put the nut plate on the left side as well.

Last step of the night was to install the left side skin.  You rivet the 704-H to the side skin before installing the skin.  That's it for the day.  Doesn't seem like that much when writing this but it was a very full day with lots of details skipped in this narrative.

This is a shot of the spar where the wing will attach later.  Notice the all thread rod with two nuts on the inside of the spar.  This is how I keep the clearance set so the wing spar will fit when it's time.

Oct 18 & 19th, 2002  16 hours (times 2)

Linda's parents have been visiting this week from Alabama.  I took advantage of having an extra hand available and got my father-in-law to help me rivet the fuselage together.  It was really another couple of marathon days as we spent two full days riveting.  I think Johnny, my father-in-law, really enjoyed the experience.  Bottom line is that we got it all riveted together and flipped the boat up-right.

 I'll post some pictures of the finished product later.  I didn't take any during the riveting process as it is nothing new.  We would just cleco things up with enough clecos to hold things in place, load the particular piece of the skin/frame with rivets, tape the rivets in place (we started using the blue plastic as tape, worked great) and rivet away.

The "canoe" riveted and flipped back upright !

Here's just a couple of shots of the inside of the plane.

I stuck the rudder pedals in how they looked right side up.

Center section.

By the way, this thing was totally level & straight.  I kept checking the 704 bulkhead, the firewall and the tail cone.  They all stayed within .1 degree all through the process.  When we flipped it upright, I leveled the 704 spar and then checked the rear 710 & 711 (I believe these are the correct numbers) bulkheads.  They were perfect.  The digital level read 0.0!!!!