Fuselage 26-11 to 26-14

Doublers and skin stiffeners back riveted to the Centre Bottom Skin. I had a few issues with back-riveting the 426-4 rivets and they aren’t as consistent as I would like but they are acceptable. I can’t figure out why unfortunately.

The gear brace bars are riveted together to form the Gear Brace Assembly. This is for the tricycle undercarriage as the taildragger legs are mounted to the firewall. This assembly is then back riveted to the bottom skin after the seat rib angles are attached to the gear assembly. These have to be set at 90 degrees by partially setting the top rivet and then clamping and match drilling #30 the other two holes. The problem I encountered was finding a decent way to either use the digital level or right angle. It is also very difficult to clamp as you need access to the holes to match drill them! Anyway, I did the best I could and later fitting proved them to be pretty square.

Once the gear assembly is riveted to the skin, the second seat rib angle is added in a similar manner, checking they are parallel with the other angles.

Next, the whole bulkhead assembly is placed onto the skin. This sounded straightforward but it takes a little fanangling to get everything in the right place. It also comes clear why the two outboard seat ribs aren’t riveted on at an earlier stage as you need to release these from the bulkhead to place them over the seat rib angles. At one stage, I thought I had everything on backwards!

Good to see a large lump of aircraft on the bench. Lord knows where I am going to put it…