Day 70

Today we worked on skinning the top of the rear fuselage.

We started with lifting the whole fuselage body down off of the work bench and set it on the floor. (Resting on a piece of foam so as not to damage the under skins.) We then got out the two skins that would go on the top and removed their protective sheeting, cleaned the factory stamping off, scuffed the panels with an abrasive pad, and then cleaned them again. We then got out the various channels and luggage compartment pieces and prepped those as well.

Next, the rib channels were set in place and the top VHF support angles were riveted to the top Longeron and finished riveting the angles to the cross ribs. We also went to install the cable tray in the top of the luggage compartment and found that the manual had had us rivet a angle support in the wrong orientation, so we drilled it out and put it the correct way.

After all that was in place, we Cleco’ed the left top skin in place. Next we assembled the luggage door and Cleco’ed it to the side skin. Then we riveted the luggage door frame and, the bottom row of rivets, and the side Longeron. We also Cleco’ed and riveted the bottom row on the right top skin.

After we finish running the wiring for the VHF and the install the GMU11 we will cleco the top skins over the top and finish riveting them.