The bottom of the fuselage has a lot so structure to it, as it supports the wing spar and cabin payload.  The bottom skin reminded me of Plinko, just without prizes at the bottom.  It’s really just more of the usual for construction with this bottom skin.

In other news, I had my local EAA chapter technical counselor stop by and give the wings a last look before closing them up.  I got a great report card on my work and another report for my final inspection.  While it’s not a blank check, I have heard quite a few folks say the final inspection is a bit easier when the FAA see a history of routine inspections.  It’s nice to have your work validated as a quality product as well.  It’s good motivation to keep charging on the project.

Once the bulkheads are all together, there is an infinite amount of ribs that are attached making up the bottom of the fuselage.  It’s also where the pilot and passengers park their butts, so it’s pretty important to get right.  Fortunately, I’m really good at drilling out rivets.  More on that in a minute.

The ribs take a lot of work to prep, as they are very closely spaced and there’s a lot to scuff and prime.  The prepping alone took a few hours and got a bit boring.  It was also a bit tricky making sure I had everything in the right spot.  Attention to detail on the plans was important and I had to reference a few future sections to see what the bigger picture is on where stuff goes.

Finally everything is primed and now it’s time to rivet.  I just can’t get into a groove with my offset rivet set.  I am drilling out about a fifth of the rivets because I am smashing the manufactured head.  I also riveted an outside rib on without putting the other end of it inside a bulkhead, so all of those rivets had to come out.  I had to slow myself down and refocus which is yielding better results.

I did take some time to clean up the heat duct tee before installing.  I’m sure there is plenty of heat in the back, but why leave an ugly piece in the project when I could fix it up.  Before and after shows a nice increase in the outlet area so it should provide smoother airflow compared to the original condition.

Sometimes you’re on and sometimes you can’t figure out why nothing you touch works or ends up as it should.  Tonight I attacked riveting the aft spar and seat rails.  I had bolted and torqued everything the previous evening as I was tired, and it took long enough with the large quantity of bolts on this spar.  On the forward spar, I used the DRDT2 with rivet dies to squeeze  most of the rivets, but had to buck all on the aft spar.  There are a lot of rivets that you have to get to with the offset head and it took quite a few terrible rivets for me to get in the grove again with all of my tools.

I also was mentally worn out from work and despite consulting the plans many times and noting one line of holes should be left un-riveted, I filled them with beautifully set rivets on the left side of the spar.  So I had to drill all of those out before moving on.

Now one would think you’d remember that on the right side, but not me.  Filled that line up with perfect examples of bucking rivets.  Awesome.  Drilled those out.  I also took some time to really closely inspect all of the other rivets and drilled quite a few out, as I wasn’t happy with them.  Taking my time and a deep breath, the second attempt on each one of those turned out vastly better than the first.  It’s one of those cases that I’m sure it’d be fine and the airplane would never notice a few imperfect rivets, but I haven’t taken a “that’s good enough” mentality yet and don’t want to start now.

With the decision to hold off on the bottom wing skins until after another EAA tech counselor visit, it’s time to move onto the fuselage kit.  This kit arrived to our old house over a year ago, and has since been stored on the overhead racks in the garage.  The first challenge was to find all the associated parts that resulted in lots of trips up and down the ladder.  Alas, I finally located everything and was able to get started on the spars and seat rails.

I’m already seeing a lot of smaller pieces but many more than in the wings, and of course beefier substructure as it carries most of the loads of the aircraft.  After the normal routine, I got to riveting and quickly remembered it’s been a year and a half since I’ve bucked a rivet.  It has also been a year and a half since I’ve drilled out a rivet.  I can now say I’m current on both tasks.   

The front spar is all ready to go with the aft spar and assemblies up next.  I’m also happy to say that for the past three weeks, I’ve worked on the airplane every single day, whether it’s physically in the shop or electrical planning.  Not only am I really feeling motivated by that, but I’m also making a lot of progress.