Jenn had to work today, so I got started today by finishing the right skin. My buddy Andre then stopped by and we installed it and started riveting. We made it through all of the bottom rivets on the left side aft of F-704 as well as all of the rivets on the side skins aft of F-704 (with the exception of the longeron rivets which I can squeeze).
Here you can see that the outboard seat ribs are riveted to the side skin using AN470 rivets since this is inside the wing root and won’t be visible when the wings are installed. If you look carefully, you will notice that the forward two rows of rivets are AN426 instead of AN470. This is because I inadvertently countersunk these holes in the side doublers, so I had to dimple the skins to match. I spoke with Ken at Van’s, and he confirmed this was a non-issue.
Here you can see how the conical bend looks when riveted. I’m really happy with how this turned out. All of the joints are nice and tight, and the rivets turned out great.
We knocked out the double row of rivets attaching the center skins to the tailcone on the left side as well as the rivets holding the bottom skin to the center rib.
