Continuing on with the forward fuselage, it was time to start riveting the recess and various angles onto the firewall. I decided to back rivet these, and placed some additional 3/4" boards under the firewall to support the flange off the workbench.
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| Angles and recess clecoed to the firewall. I started by riveting the recess |
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| Backriveting continued with the F-1001C lower channel |
I was careful not to rivet any locations where rivets are shared with parts that have not yet been attached to the firewall. I also decided to use one rivet size larger than the RV-10 plans called for because I felt those were not quite long enough to obtain a shop head that would be within spec for both thickness and diameter.
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| Angles and recess riveted to firewall (except where rivets will be shared with additional parts to be attached later) |
Next I riveted together the forward seat rail supports and added the required nutplates. These were all easy to rivet with the pneumatic squeezer and either the flange nose or regular 3" yokes.
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| After clecoing the floor ribs in place, I hung the bottom skin off the end of the workbench, supported by the floor ribs, and clamped a jig in place to prevent the floor rib from leaning forward as I was riveting. This held the floor rib in position well enough to allow me to buck all rivets without issue |
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| F-1049D floor rib rivets all set well |
I was then able to backrivet the F-1049A, F-1049B and F-1049C floor ribs in place as there was no flange interference.
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| Backriveting the F-1049A floor ribs |
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| Backriveting continues |
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| Floor rib backriveting complete |
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| Rivets all set well and the skin looks perfectly flat |
Next I riveted the forward fuselage bulkheads to the floor ribs and bottom skin.
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| Most forward fuselage bulkhead rivets were backriveted to the bottom skin |
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| For those few forward fuselage bulkhead rivets close to the seat rail supports, I once again hung the skin off the end of the workbench and clamped it down, and then bucked those rivets to the bottom skin |
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| Angled tungsten bucking bar fits nicely close to the seat rail support |
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| Another check on how the rivets set, and they all look good |
To finish out the bottom skin riveting for now, I set all rivets from the forward fuselage bulkheads into the floor rib end flanges. I was able to reach these with the pneumatic squeezer. I also backriveted the first few floor rivets on each of the F-1084A system brackets.
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| Left system brackets riveted in place after checking their orientation... |
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| ...and the same for the right system brackets |
Moving back to the firewall, I started backriveting the upper and lower firewall brackets in place. Once again I used one size longer rivets than called for in the plans.
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| All rivets taped in their respective holes with the firewall bracket held in place |
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| Rivet shop heads after backriveting. All came out well, but there were a few locations where I had to use a suicide set to get close to the bracket flanges as my back rivet set did not fit. |
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| Bottom left firewall bracket riveted |
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| Bottom right firewall bracket riveted |
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| Top right firewall bracket riveted |
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| Firewall riveting progressing well. Next up I will rivet the forward fuselage ribs and associated angles to the firewall |
I then decided to rivet the nutplates that sit on the forward side of the firewall.
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| For this nutplate that sits on the forward side of the F-1001B angle, I had to reverse dimple the nutplate (and firewall nutplate attach holes) as I had previously countersunk the nutplate attach holes in the F-1001B on the wrong side. |
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| There was however no issue riveting this nutplate with its reverse countersink |
Getting close to completion of the firewall section. I clecoed the forward fuselage ribs and remaining angles and gussets to the firewall, and backriveted these on.
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| Forward tunnel taking shape as the ribs get attached to the firewall |
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| Backriveting most of the firewall gives great results |
Finally I bucked the forward flanges of the nose gear tension fittings to the firewall. I had to turn up the pressure at the rivet gun due to the increased thickness of the combined aluminum and steel layers, but I had no issue setting those rivets and was very happy with the results.
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| Carefully bucking the nosegear tension fitting flange rivets to the firewall |
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| Left side complete... |
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| ...and right side complete |
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| Firewall ready to attach to the forward fuselage bottom skin |
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| Firewall from aft, starting to take up significant space on the workbench |
Time Taken: 15.8 hours
Dates: May 20 2025 - June 3 2025
Firewall Total Time: 51.0 hours
Fwd Fuse Ribs, Bhds & Bottom Skin Total Time: 35.8 hours
RV-10 Build Total Time: 1055.8 hours
Priming Total Time: 133.5 hours (not included in build time totals)
