Fuselage - Center Section
I was ready to start assembling the center section, but I found a few more holes that were not drilled and dimpled.
Forgot to drill the holes in the seat ribs where the bolts attach the ribs to the F-704 AFT bulkhead. So, cleco the ribs back on, drill them, remove them, deburr them. | |
Every rib, top hole and bottom hole. | |
Also, happened to notice on the plans, that the two outside F-716 ribs do not have their flanges in the same direction. That's right, both the left and right sides have an F-716L and an F-716R. This picture shows the improperly installed rib. | |
Finally, got to set some rivets. I was just about done with the rivets in F-704, when I said to myself that all of these rivets went well. Then wham! The bucking bar slipped and this is the result. I considered drilling this rivet out, and then using the uni-bit to drill a 1/2" hole here, but decided to just leave it--it'll be ok. | |
Another picture of the screw-up. | |
Seat ribs riveted to the aft F-704 bulkhead, and bolts installed. | |
I started to cleco the F-776 bottom skins to the skelton, and noticed that someone had already riveted the forward holes of the seat ribs to F-704. The rivet in this picture is actually under the skin. | |
What was I thinking? Anyway, drill all of these out. | |
F-776 clecoed on, ready to rivet. I'm tired, and I've made a lot of mistakes today. Should I start riveting, or should I wait until next week? | |
Well, I went ahead and started riveting the seat ribs to the bottom skins. If I had waited, and done a final inspection, I might have noticed that some idiot forgot to dimple the last hole in this rib. | |
Well, other than that one hole, this was a good start. It looks like I can rivet all of these ribs by myself, except for the two center ribs. Of course, I will have to rivet left-handed on the other side, which might limit my reach a little. That's enough for today.
Update 11-30-05 - do not rivet the F-704 now. See the Fuselage Center Section 11-25-05 for when the screw-up was detected. |