After being out of the game 10 days while we were in Florida on vacation, it was nice to be back on the project! Today was fun with lots of progress on the removable floorboards. I drilled the remaining nutplate rivet holes using the nutplate jig in the floor board and then started countersinking for the NAS1097 rivets. This was recommended by Rick Galati who is building a beautiful -8. The heads are very small and although I wouldn't use them in a structural application, they are fine for keeping the floorboards pinned down. Since the heads are small the countersinking is a snap. I found I didn't even use the countersink cage as it was easy to just give the bit a whirl and that was almost always enough! - Thanks Rick! I then realized I didn't make provisions for nutplates for the baggage compartment floor and shelf so out comes the nutplate jig. Got all the holes drilled and countersink (rivets only - I'm not using flush screws). To deburr the bottom of the rivet holes was a pain so I used scotchbrite and that didn't work so I moved to emery cloth and that worked great! Then I primed the areas where I countersunk so there is not exposed aluminum. Syd came out at the end of the session and helped me prep for riveting the nutplate in.
Along the sides I used the 90 attachment shown with the nutplate jig clamped into place.
Here's the baggage floor- I ditched the clamp for the nutplate jig - much faster.
Syd attaching clecos to the nutplates to help me out.
