Fuse Side Skins 29-18-1, 29-19-6, 29-19-12

While I wait to get some help with riveting the bottom flanges of the fuse side skins, I decided to rivet together the rear seat vents, and attach the doublers to the mid fuse side skins.

Rear seat vents riveted together using the pneumatic squeezer

All vent parts lined up well

While riveting the vent brackets to the doubler and skins, I placed a 1/8" piece of angle between the brackets to maintain the spacing when squeezing the rivets

All double/bracket to skin rivets were set using a 1" no hole yoke which just fit through the opening

Doubler/bracket riveting complete with all rivets in spec

Left rear seat vent. All sides are flush with the skin except for the forward bottom corner of the vent which stick out less than 1/32" when pulled closed. I'll adjust this later after attaching hardware.

Left side vent opened and sits well

Right side vent lay perfectly flush with the skin on all sides after riveting

Right side vent closed and nicely centered within the doubler

Returning to riveting the forward fuse skins, my daughter was able to help me set the rivets that were hard to reach myself. Even with her help, some of the shop heads were tricky to reach being down low to the floor, and I had to use the long empennage bucking bar to get into some of the tighter spaces.

Left side forward fuse skin floor rivets set

I was happy with how the skins butted up together tightly after riveting. There is one small visible gap between the skins (seen above next to the firewall) that I will seal with the 3M fire barrier sealant

We then riveted the lower left fuse side channel to the skin. Other than having to reach down with the bucking bar, most of these rivets were relatively easy to set. Bucking got trickier, however, as we moved aft due to the side channel coming very close to the outer floor rib.

Empennage bucking bar was just able to fit to set the aft most side channel rivets (including those common to the lower clip). This same bar was also used to set the bottom skin rivet that lies within the F-01042 bulkhead side channel

Aft most bottom skin rivets set

Lower left fuse channel rivets all came out well

Aft most lower left fuse channel rivets looking good after some space limited bucking

Lower left firewall bracket riveted in place. Rivet gun pressure had to be turned up a couple of notches to set these. Some powder coat that came away near the weld will have some touch up primer applied

Lower left fuse channel rivet shop heads all within spec

Lower left fuse channel clip riveted in place. These were bucked using the tapered end of the long empennage bucking bar...

...as was the floor rivet within the F-01042 bulkhead side channel.

We then did the same on the right forward fuse skin and completed all forward skin riveting (except for the ribs left out until after floor panel installation).