Fuselage - Top
Ok, the fuselage is right side up, and sitting on a stand. It's time to actually get back to the task of building the airplane. First thing to do was to take care of anything in the center section that did not get done while the fuselage was upside down. This included a few rivets in the F-706 bulkhead that attach to the baggage area ribs, and let's not forget those bolts that attach the seat ribs to the in F-704 bulkheads.
I thought it was hard to get to the F-706 bulkhead rivets with the fuselage upside down. Unfortunately, with the fuselage right side up, it is now hard to reach the rivets in the center of the fuselage. So, you can either chose to rivet overhead, or have a long reach with things right side up. Either has its disadvantages.
As it turns out, I spent most of the day in the garage, but only logged 1 hour against building. I had problems with the F-706 rivets, which I blamed on having to rivet with the gun upside down, and the hose poking in an awkward direction. I had to remove my swivel a few months ago because the leaking air bothered me. After the bad rivets, I reattached the swivel, but decided to try and fix the air leak. Two hours later I tossed the swivel and finished up the rivets without any further problems.
About that time, my fan just died. After taking it apart and not finding any problems, I assumed that it had shut down due to some sort of thermal switch. Yeah, like a $20 fan is going to have a thermal switch. Anyway, I reassembled the fan, and it still did not work. Looks like I need a new air hose swivel and a fan--time to go shopping. These are the things that get in the way of building an airplane.
 | First thing to do was to take care of those rivets in the F-706 bulkhead that attach the baggage ribs to the bulkhead. |
 | This was the result after two rivets. It's hard to rivet with the gun upside down, and I really hate it when I have to use the offset rivet set. This looked like a real problem to drill out, but I managed ok. After I figured out what I was doing wrong the other rivets went in ok, well, mostly. I should mention that the offset rivet set really is not that bad. It just takes a little more concentration. |