So not a whole lot of interest to report here, just more and more riveting. Tonight we worked on the rivets at the aft end of the seat rib assembly, and I think these are probably the most tedious ones to deal with here. The understructure here is such that it’s almost impossible for me to even get a good look at the rivets I’m bucking. By itself, this isn’t a huge deal – I’ve shot plenty of rivets and just held the bucking bar by feel, but in most of those cases I had good access to hold the bar in such a way that I could make sure it was square. In this spot, it’s also hard to get my hand on the bar to hold it securely, which makes things a lot more fun.
At this point, we have almost all the rivets on the right side of the fuselage in this spot done. We stopped short of a few, simply because I could not for the life of me figure out how to get any of my bucking bars onto the rivet tail. I guess I’m hoping that maybe I’ll have an epiphany overnight or something. I’ve also considered using blind rivets here, but I don’t think I have any that have the required grip length here. Several spots in the build specify that MK-319BS rivets can be used in place of the 426-3 flush rivets, but they’re always spots where it’s just a single skin and a rib. Here I have two skins and a slightly thicker-then-normal rib, so I’m not sure the MK319-BS rivets would be acceptable.
The good news is that once we get this area done, everything else that’s left will be simple by comparison. Assuming I can figure out a way to buck these last few obnoxious rivets (or use blind rivets in their place), I think we might have a good chance of finishing up the fuselage canoe riveting this weekend.