Mid Fuse Ribs

No building yesterday due to a sick dog and some last-minute things that came up, but tonight we're happy to see Dag doing a lot better and got some more great progress on the fuselage. I hate to say this so early on in the fuse build, but this is definitely some of the most fun building we've had so far... most of the steps are pretty short bursts between prep work, priming, and riveting so it really feels like a lot is getting accomplished in a short period of time! Hardest thing about all of this is reading/following the plans properly... more on this later.

With the inboard seat rib subassemblies match-drilled and complete, we moved on to do basically the same kind of work for the outboard seat rib assemblies. One word of caution: the side of each piece that you are supposed to dimple is different between the outboard and inboard ribs, and without staring at the plans for quite some time this is an easy detail to miss. I *almost* dimpled the outboard ribs backwards but caught my mistake just in time. Anyway, with the inboard and outboard assemblies drilled, deburred and scuffed, it was time for a quick primer session:

F-1016 inboard/outboard seat rib subassemblies

Next, it was time to rivet these assemblies together, which overall went pretty well. I did end up having to drill out two rivets along the bottom of each of the outboard rib assemblies though, because the plans weren't very clear (in my opinion) about which side to place the manufactured head of the rivet. One diagram shows the rivet callouts, which is typically all you need, then only in a later diagram there's an arrow saying "shop head on other side"... thanks for that! Woulda been nice to know earlier. No major foul, everything drilled out perfectly and after redoing them you'd never know what happened. I'd say in general, the plans are most definitely starting to assume you not only "know what you're doing" but also know how to read their plans-- which, depending on what section you're working on often requires the elusive skill of divination. I'm still working on that one myself.

Anyway, after a bit of riveting we had all four assemblies... assembled.

The inboard (bottom) and outboard (top) seat rib subassemblies.

Other side of the subassemblies. Sorry for the bad photo.

With these ribs riveted together, it was time to put together the flap motor brackets, which only involves basically three more pieces and a vent tee. Although they were a bit tricky to align and drill, it was quick work to drill and deburr everything and get the two inboard halves mated, shown here:

The flap motor attach brackets and vent tee installed between the inboard seat rib assemblies

After that, it was time to attach the whole works together, to the Aft Center Section Bulkhead! This was an exciting step because it's the first time the parts are coming together to build the first "three dimensional" part that will essentially make up the floorpans for the rear seat passengers. After a few match-drills, deburrs, bolts, and rivets, we had this:

Completed seat rib/aft center section subassemblies

R side view of the fuselage so far

With that, it was time to call it a night... next up, the rear seat ribs! From the looks of it in the plans, there are 12 ribs that go under the back seat, so I see lots of fluting and deburring in our future (see, I'm getting better at that whole divination thing)!