Brief Description: Joined Center and Aft Fuselage Assemblies
Finally finished re-riveting the aft fuselage assembly. We flipped the center and aft fuse assemblies over and clecoed them together. Ginger volunteered to climb under and cleco the baggage ribs to the F-706 Bulkhead. Next up was clecoing on the F-770 Side Skins. On "He Who Shall Not be Named's" (HWSNBN) build log, he advised that if a builder were "bold," they could form the conical bends on the F-770 Side Skins before fitting them to the Fuse Assembly. The directions call for fitting the skins and removing them several times. I figured I was bold (soon to be too bold), so I used two pieces of hardwood and clamps to form the bends as Orndorff shows in his video. I drew lines originating at the relief hole in the aft end and 1/2" apart at the forward end. I clamped the wood to the lines and bent the skins upward. The first skin came out nicely but I figured I could do it more quickly and got agressive with the second skin. This resulted in a small tear in the skin and the need to drill a stop hole. After much struggle and inventive language, I got the F-770 Forward Skins clecoed to the assembly. It was every bit the PITA that I heard it would be. To get the left side clecoed, we ended up "flipping the canoe." Once the pressure was off, the holes lined up much better. I was quite please to find that my longeron bends matched the skins quite nicely! I fit and drilled the F-720 Armrests. I read a build log somewhere where the builder used spare J-Channel to brace the armrests. I talked to Pat Lee about it and he said that although he did not brace his armrests, he thought it was a good idea. I will do that sometime before I install them. I finished the day by drilling the longerons to the skins. I used a cutoff wheel in a Dremel to trim the longerons to be 3/4" short of the end of the skins. Next up is fitting the firewall.
