Firewall

Riveted and bolted the firewall onto the fuselage. Still have to torque the bolts, and waiting for two more bolts from ACS. More bolt collisions, have to put 4 bolts the other way.

Upper firewall and windshield strip

Deburred, primed and riveted together the upper firewall and wind shield strip. I used bucked rivets because I wanted it totally flush. The main difference between flush bucked rivets and flush pulled rivets is that flush bucked rivets are flush.

Figured out on odd thing. I have previously been testing primers and how well they withstand different liquids, such as acetone and silicone remover etc. Seems like only epoxy primer is able to do this. On the firewall I cut my finger and spilled some blood. Easy match for acetone or silicone remover I thought, but neither of them had any effect whatsoever on dried blood. Who would have thought ?

Fuselage and firewall

Riveted and bolted together the fuselage. Now I have a whole aircraft fuselage in my shop, not just a bunch of pieces. Drilled the upper firewall to the wind shield holder, which was rather confusing regarding directions.

Fwd fuselage

Riveted together fwd fuselage and replaced the rivets that were too long with bucked rivets. I also had to countersink a few bolts. Other bolts will have an extremely tight fit, and probably will need to be filed a bit.

All this modding makes the primer a bit dirty, and to spray with clear does not seem like such a good idea anymore (probably never were). I think I will use some colored polyurethane instead.

Fwd Fuselage

More riveting on the fwd fuselage. Some rivets will block the bolts!! Rather incredible that Sonex has not fixed stuff like that. Luckily I have tons of bucked rivets and will replace the pulled ones that does not fit.

  

Fwd fuselage

Riveted the other side of the fuselage. Noticed that there started to be few rivets left, and started to count. There were several hundred rivets lacking. Before writing an angry mail to Sonex, I checked the dark corners of the shop, and of course I found a box named "Flush Rivet Wing kit" :-)

Fwd fuselage and engine

Riveted together the right side. Got message from Sonex today. My engine will be sent 17 november, a couple of months later than promised first, but I got more than enough things to do anyway, so no big deal for me.

Fwd fuselage

Pulled the rivets in the aft fuselage for the seat back. Deburred and primed all the internals for the fwd fuselage with the U-pol Acid #8. Will just leave the internals in the priming color and spray over with clear paint when finished. I think some 2k rattle can will be OK.

The last holes

Drilled the last few holes in the aft spar/fuselage connection. Deburring and priming next.

New parts

Got the aluminium piece from ACS and made the new parts with correct holes.