Riveting of the mid and aft bottom skins to the mid fuse and baggage area ribs continued steadily with my daughter's help on the rivet gun. The only tight areas were at the forward end of the mid fuse between the outboard seat ribs, but I carefully maneuvered the bucking bars to successfully set all rivets with only a couple that had to be drilled out and redone to meet the required shop head shape and dimensions.
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| Making progress on the forward bottom skin. This was very strightforward with a helper. |
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| Left COM antenna doubler riveted to the skin and rib flange |
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| Same for the right COM antenna. No issues riveting these. |
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| Right COM antenna doubler from inside, between the rear seat ribs |
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| Left COM antenna doubler |
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| To reach the rivets along the flange of the F-1016 outboard seat ribs, I used the long elevator bucking bar. This made easy work of the rivets without having to reach inside the tight space (which I would have had to do had I used a shorter bar) |
To set the rivets along the flange of the F-1015 outboard seat ribs, I was actually able to reach in with a shorter bucking bar as your hand/wrist naturally curves around the top flange of the rib to hold the bucking bar in place.
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| All bottom skin riveting complete except for where the two skins overlap |
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| Mid fuse bottom skin riveting complete, which also marks this section of the plans COMPLETE! |
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| Cumulative bottom skin rivet count by date. There was a two month gap in riveting as I took some vacation time and also worked on other parts of the fuselage |
Time Taken: 9.9 hours
Dates: March 14 2025 - March 30 2025, June 2 2025 - June 6 2025
Mid Fuse Ribs & Bottom Skins Total Time: 66.2 hours
RV-10 Build Total Time: 1032.0 hours
Priming Total Time: 126.0 hours (not included in build time totals)
