EAA Tech Support & More Formers

On Friday evening I had a visit from an EAA Technical Counselor. It was his initial visit. Having an EAA Tech Counselor come over helps to insure you understand what you are doing. They offer guidance, tips, help from other builders, and good moral mental support for those tough decisions you are going to have to make during the project.

Well, the Tech Counselor said the riveting looked pretty good and the project was well on it's way. The rivets looked pretty good because I had help from my significant other, Christine.

Here's a shot of Christine using a 3X pneumatic rivet gun. She did a great job. Thanks Chrissy!

Christine had no problem with the universal head rivets. The flush head rivets are another story. They are tough.

Here are the parts for the last fuselage former assembly. They end up connecting to the last two formers on the fuselage, stations 205 & 209. I can't remember the station number for the life of me, but I think it is 194.609.

The vertical fin and the horizontal stabilizers connect to this former and the last two. Again, and I can not stress this enough, look over the prints very carefully. The details of how the assembly goes together are there. You just have to look at all the prints. (Several times.)

This is the aft end of the aircraft. The tail wheel mounts on the last two formers, the smaller two. It bolts onto the bottom of them.

I still have to install the brackets for the vertical stabilizer, nut plates, debur, counter sink & dimple on some areas, and corrosion protect each part of the assembly. Then finally rivet together.

I will complete the riveting when I build the fuselage assembly. That will occur after the bottom skin is installed on the center section & the CS is in the jig for assembling the fuselage. Ugh! More work to do.

Later,

Brian