Stjohn's RV-7

4 hours.
Big day, and somewhat of a milestone. Dave came over and we riveted the aft top skin on to the airframe. I promised Dave there would be no plastic dust, strictly metalwork: lots of riveting. He bucked, I shot. I put a couple of pieces of plywood and a couple of bamboo floor planks down in the Jeffries Tube (Star Trek reference, look it up) so a human can lie down back there and get work done. Dave had never bucked a rivet before, but he picked it up really quickly and we only had 4 rivets out of all the ones on the top skin that we had to redo. But everything came together, and Dave noted that it was cool to see the flanges and the skin tighten up as the rivets got squeezed. For the record, those little tabs connecting the bulkheads to 3 layers of skin? They suck. We were able to do exactly 1 of them successfully. One broke off as we tried to bend it into proper position. Grr. There are two in the back that didn’t make it either. Something tells me I’ll be OK without them. Of note though, are the rivets that interfere with the giant angles on either side of the baggage compartment/roll bar crossmember: How the F do those go in? I have some CherryMax rivets left over from my adventures on the tailwheel bulkhead, maybe it’s time to bring those to bear.

So here’s one large, flat expanse of metal that won’t be kicking around the shop anymore, waiting for catastrophe to befall it. Now there are only 3 skins left: the forward top skin and the two bottom wing skins. For now, though, I have to go back to plasticland and install the aft canopy section.