Author Archives: pclifton

Fuselage riveting, part 15 (series finale!)

It’s done! I got a bit ahead of myself last night be declaring all the annoying riveting to be done. It turned out there were still some challenging spots left, most notably the rivets at the lower aft end of … Continue reading

Posted in Fuselage | Hours Logged: 6

Fuselage riveting, part 14

We continue creeping ever closer to getting this riveting done. Tonight we finished up all of the really annoying riveting around the aft seat ribs and also shot a handful of rivets at the rear seat lap belt anchor points. … Continue reading

Posted in Fuselage | Hours Logged: 2

Fuselage riveting, part 13

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 … Continue reading

Posted in Fuselage | Hours Logged: 2

Replacement parts

Josie wasn’t feeling well tonight, so rather than do any riveting, I decided to work on some of the replacement parts I got from Van’s last week. First I separated the floor support angles and final-drilled all the holes. I … Continue reading

Posted in Fuselage | Hours Logged: 2

Fuselage riveting, part 12

So tonight was kind of a turning point, I think. Two-person riveting so far has been an often-frustrating experience; it seemed like Josie was just completely unable to get a handle on using the rivet gun in moderation, resulting in … Continue reading

Posted in Fuselage | Hours Logged: 1

Fuselage riveting, part 11

Not much to report, we’re just continuing to slowly work our way through the riveting, a bit at a time. Tonight we shot most of the rivets at the joint between the mid bottom skins and the aft bottom skin. … Continue reading

Posted in Fuselage | Hours Logged: 1.5

Rudder pedal repair

So when I built out the in-flight adjustable rudder pedal assembly a few weeks back, I made the mistake of cutting the release cable too short. Since there was no urgent need to fix that, I simply put the needed … Continue reading

Posted in Fuselage | Hours Logged: 2

Priming (and a few rivets

My main goal for today was to get the gear legs primed; as I mentioned last night, this would hopefully prevent me from getting hung up this week or next weekend when I was ready to work on the gear. … Continue reading

Posted in Fuselage | Hours Logged: 3

Fuselage riveting, part 10

So progress remains slow. This week saw me taking on some new responsibilities at work, which kept me busier than usual, which in turn made me write the evenings off. On top of that, scheduling work sessions becomes a bit … Continue reading

Posted in Fuselage | Hours Logged: 2.5

Fuselage riveting, part 9

So today ended up being one of those super-lazy Sundays, and even though we’d been talking about getting riveting done, we didn’t actually get to work until pretty late in the evening. The going was kind of slow as well, … Continue reading

Posted in Fuselage | Hours Logged: 1.5