Today's session started where I left off yesterday with the top fuselage skins. After deburring all of the holes I took the vixen file to the edges and cleaned them up. Next I started dimpling the aft skin and when that was done, I repeated the process on the forward skin. There are two small, curved stiffeners that fit the contour of the forward skin between the aft baggage bulkhead and the longeron, and these I had waited to fit and drill until now.
I decided to go ahead and get that done so I put the forward skin back in place and after drawing centerlines on both stiffeners I drilled them to fit. Back off with the skin, finish dimpling that and the stiffeners, and that task was done. Next I dimpled the upper stiffeners and gusset plate and set those aside for priming on a warmer day.
Yesterday I mentioned that the adhesive attaching the plastic covering on the skins was pretty well set and when I tried to remove the plastic the adhesive stayed behind. The second picture shows what it looked like before I got the lacquer thinner out to clean everything up. Once that was clean, I put the skins away until later for final riveting.
The last task for today was to measure and set the two static ports--one on each side of the fuselage. During the next couple of sessions I will be fabricating and fitting the elevator bellcrank and pushrod, installing the static lines, and getting the horizontal tail ready for installation.
