Section: 25
Hours: 3

Today I finished up the forward center section bulkhead assembly. I bolted and riveted in the bearing bracket braces.

Next I reamed out some bolt holes. I inserted the tail of the reamer in the forward side of the bulkhead (left side in pic below) and carefully pulled it into the hole stopping just before the cutting face reached the hole. Then I dabbed Boelube on the cutting face and chucked the reamer into the drill. Then I pulled the reamer through the hole (towards the right in the picture). I wiped down the reamer between each hole and ran the drill at a slow speed. The holes turned out very smooth.

Section: 26
Hours: 5

I used the squeezer to set the rivets for the baggage rib doublers. I also riveted nut plates, clips, routing brackets and crotch belt brackets to the seat ribs (not shown).

Then I bolted and riveted the seat ribs to the aft center section bulkhead. All the riveting was done using the long bent stick in the rivet gun to reach the rib flanges. I found it was easiest to camp the bulkhead to the table and shoot the rivets horizontally.

I torqued all the bolts and dabbed torque lock (bright orange paint) on each nut.

Section: 25
Hours: 8

Here is the aft center section bulkhead being assembled. I had some 3/8" "temporary" bolts on hand to aid in the alignment of the side angles before riveting. All these rivets were set using the rivet gun- the squeezer would not reach.

The bearing brackets are double flush riveted. The rivets called out are just a little long and the next smaller size are a little too short so the shop side of the flush riveting stands a little proud, but it looks like that won't matter because they clear the cover rib without any problem.

I noticed that the large rivets set in the spar section by the factory had some rivet tape residue on them which got me thinking. I put some clear packing tape on the tip of the rivet driver and the manufactured heads turned out much cleaner after driving them. Why didn't I discover this earlier?

It's beginning to look like an assembly! The cover plates are bolted and riveted to the spar. All I have to do now is figure out how to rivet the bearing bracket brace which doesn't have much clearance for riveting. I'll leave that for the morning when I'm fresh. Another 100+ degree day in the garage this afternoon.

Section: 25
Hours: 4

After all the prepping and priming comes assembly! Here is a fuselage bulkhead being assembled. The instructions say to use "temporary" nuts on the bolts. I didn't have any on hand and none are included in the kit so I set aside this work for later. There are also several holes that must be reamed. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading ahead in the plans to see what other "temporary" bolts, nuts and other hardware is required so I could order it all at once from Aircraft Spruce :-(

As long as I was on the computer, I also looked up tutorials and youtube videos on how to ream holes.  The take aways I got from the research are:
1) Use a slow drill speed. I set the belt on my drill press to the slowest pulley combination.
2) Use lots of lubricant. I liberally brushed on Boelube to the reamer and into the holes!
3) Don't insert the end of the reamer all the way into the chuck. You do not want it to be rigid so it can find the center of the hole without chattering.
4) Run the reamer into the hole and then turn off the drill press before removing the reamer.
4) Carefully clean the reamer after every hole so you don't run chips into the next hole and mar the surface.

Section: 25
Hours: 8

I riveted in nut plates to the spar carry through.

Then I pulled and prepped more bulkhead parts.

One of the counter sink holes was too close to the flange so I had to remove the counter sink cage and carefully do the counter sink using the drill press.

Here's another set of parts filed, polished, deburred, dimpled and counter sunk.

And some more parts. Lots of parts in the fuselage!

Section: 25
Hours: 5

I continued prepping parts. The spar carry through has a lot of holes that need to be counter sunk. Just like the wing spar but (thankfully) smaller.

Section: 25
Hours: 5

I spent some time unwrapping and sorting the cellophane wrapped bundles of parts. Then I started picking and prepping parts. Lots of filing, polishing, hole deburing and dimpling.

Woody got busy on removing the plastic protective covering.

Section: 25
Hours: 6

Today I uncrated and inventoried the fuselage kit. My shelves have been emptied of wing parts so now was a good time to tackle this project. The shelves are now filled with fuselage parts just waiting to be assembled...

Woody helped pull miles of paper packing out of the box. It will be nice not having the box sitting in the middle of the driveway anymore.

Here's the small hardware all neatly wrapped in bags and boxes. I've found it's best to keep all the hardware in the brown bags. When hardware is called out in the plans, I look up what bag it is in from the inventory list and then pull the bag and get the hardware. I store the bags in bins labeled with the bag number so I can easily find the bag I'm looking for. I made the mistake of emptying the bags for the empennage kit into a divided box and the parts got mixed up after an accidental fall to the floor. If you keep them in the brown bags that can't happen.