Time: 8 Hours
Today started with work on the passenger seat back. There was a lot of edges that needed deburring including all the relief notches.
I scuffed, cleaned and primed all these parts.
In between the priming coats I got to work riveting the pilot seat back. I did not rivet the bottom support angle as it also gets riveted to the hinge and I didn’t want to paint the hinge. I will paint those two parts separately and then rivet those parts together.
So I still had time to kill between priming so I started looking at the cockpit rails and how the riveting would go. I grabbed several of my pneumatic squeezer yokes and started mocking up the process. I felt like I had a pretty good plan for the process and decided to start this task. I carefully clecko’d the rails in place so that I didn’t scratch the paint. I then placed painters tape on the areas where I thought I might scratch the edges. I also used back riveting tape over the rivet heads so the squeezer dies wouldn’t scratch the paint.
I started with the rivets over the center section bulkheads. I worked on the left side then the right as I had the squeezer set for the specific length rivets.
I worked my way down the length of the rails taking my time so I didn’t scratch any areas.
They all turned out perfect! Hopefully I can keep them looking as good for the rest of the build. I will put some type of padding on these and tape them down to protect them. I then grabbed the seat back support bar plates and clecko’d them in place. I had to think about how I would get to the backs of these rivets as the space towards the top of the brackets is pretty tight. To get the right angle for my hand and my tungsten bucking bar I needed to be inside the fuselage. I grabbed a scrape piece of wood to make a seat across the floor ribs and put all the tools inside for me to reach. I then climbed in and got into position. It wasn’t easy but I was able to get al of them done. I did chip the paint on the right side a little and will have to do some touch up work later.
I finished the priming on the passenger seat back and started the riveting.
I did as much as I could with the squeezer and stopped since it was late and the rest of the rivets need the rivet gun and bucking bar. I grabbed the pilot seat back and hung the parts on the rack and painted them for the last task of the day.
Another good day in the Hangar!
