1.5 hrs. partially re-cleco'ing the top skin and working on the luggage door assembly.

Since the top line (join of two top skins) of rivets was way off I decided to try and un-cleco down the ribs part way and see if I can coax the join together.  Un-cleco'ing will give me some wiggle room to try and get them together.

I looked for the holes that were the closest together and started there.  A good start!

Looking up through the inspection port on the bottom of the fuselage to make sure I was cleco'ing to the longeron at the join.  Looks good!

Making my way up....  Way better than yesterday!  This pic shows the cleco's every other hole, but for most of the way I was doing every hole to help coax them together.

Working my way back was tougher and required putting in several cleco's at an angle and literally pushing and shaking to get the skins closer.  Ultimately I couldn't go any further because doing that started to warp one of the skins.  So, the last several holes I will drill out, up-size and perhaps add some additional large rivets for strength.

Looking in through the back to check the connections with the longeron and they look good.

Here's the big picture view.  MUCH better than yesterday when it seemed like I'd have to start from scratch to get it to fit.

Don't forget the antenna backing plate which goes here.

Looking up at the luggage door assembly where the shim goes.  I measured the space and I found that if I flipped over my homemade shim it would fit perfectly.

And the frame is done.  The hinge assembly at the bottom is not riveted in place yet, but will be done in the next step.

Door fits nice, but as per the manual it will need to be bent to conform to the outline of the fuselage.

1.5 hr. cleco'ing the right rear top skin, riveting down the parachute box and fiddling with the luggage door assembly.

Starting to cleco down the right rear top skin.

My helper Greg, my younger daughter's significant other.

Cleco'ed down....

But the holes for the left and right do not line up...  Here in the middle of the rear...

And up front, even worse...  Should I have cleco'ed from these holes down?  Anybody have experience with this?  Top down work better?

Time to rivet down the bottom of the parachute box.  The holes connecting the box to the rear luggage wall still need to be drilled out and riveted.

There's a shim that is supplied to fit behind here.  JimP in his blog indicated that it was not thick enough so I tripled the thickness, but that still does not seem to be enough as you can see it still pulls in...  I'll try another layer of shim.

The manual indicates (visually, not in any words) that this shim goes on the outside of the skin, but it seems to make sense that it goes under it like this.  Anybody?

3.5 hrs. Protecting the wiring better and starting on the luggage door.

I got the nylon plastic tubing, but I thought that I didn't even want the tubing exposed to a sharp edge.  So, since there was no way I was going to be able to get edge grommet in there, I decided to be a bit creative to make my own easy to install "grommet."  Just a piece of aluminum that I could insert and bend around the edge.

Nylon tubing protecting the wiring and my homemade grommet bent into place.  Perfect!  Did this for every place wiring (or static line tubing) went through a rib, which was 12 places.

The manual doesn't mention it but you have to bend this internal backing material to conform to the fuselage outline.  If you don't it will pull the skin in and it wouldn't look too good.  So, how to bend this to conform (not as easy as it looks).

OK, I must say, after 20+ minutes of finagling it, I got it pretty perfect. ;-)

With the next piece in there to confirm the fit and still perfect.  Tomorrow I'll have some family help me put on the right rear top skin (I did a final check today of the static line and it was perfect).

The panel is coming together at SteinAir.com! :-)

I love playing around with Skyvector.com.  I want to do a flight like this in my Sling 4.

:-)

Another quick half hour priming the luggage door parts.  Kind of in a holding pattern waiting for the tubing to protect the wires in the rear fuselage (coming Thursday).  Once that's done then I can go ahead and close up the rear fuselage and start to quickly work toward closing up the center fuselage.

I understand from SteinAir that my panel has been cut and things are moving ahead.  They better be since I just paid them money to buy most of the avionics.... ;-)

I'll try to get some pics from them this week if they have anything interesting to show.

No pics today, but here's a video showing things I'll have to learn once I get my instrument rating in my plane. :-)

Anybody have an opinion on a bench power supply for testing my panel?  I asked the guy at SteinAir and he thought this one was fine, but I'm interested in any other opinions.

.5 hr. realizing that the conduit I have on hand is too wide and stiff for the purpose I need it for.  I'll need to get some smaller diameter (~1/2") smooth tubing (nylon?).  That should be much easier to slide into place.  I'll tie that down with a tie wrap to hold it in place.

Also started to clean the luggage door parts for priming tomorrow.

1 hr. hosting my EAA Technical Counselor Bob DiMeo.

Two recommendations:

1. Put some protection on the wires passing through the ribs of the fuselage.  I had previously tried to put some edge grommet on but I found it near impossible.  So, if you're not at that stage I recommend putting it on before any assembly makes it difficult.  Instead I'm going to squeeze some of my plastic conduit around the wires and push it into where they pass through the ribs.  He was totally OK with that.
2. A few rivets that go into the forward-most fuselage rib were not seated well.  This was because it was basically impossible to get a riveter head in there and they had to be done at an angle.  I will try to remove them and try again.

Other than those items he said "very nice."  Works for me!

Bob taking a close look.  He said to get in touch again when I've installed the engine, which I'm rough guessing will be in May or June realistically.  Of course I'm an optimist... ;-)

1.5 hrs. doing some riveting and misc. other things.

My EAA Technical Counselor is making a visit tomorrow morning (last time was when I was working on the wings - so it's been awhile!), so I didn't want to put on the other top skin yet.  So, I busied myself with a few other items.

Did the 4mm rivets (I upsized these holes from 3.2mm) in the back.

Getting the right side ready for the skin.  Removed the cleco's and vacuumed out the inside one last time.

Riveted down the left side rear seat stop bracket.

Did the edging on the right side top skin.

Located all the parts for the luggage door assembly.  Need to prime these parts tomorrow.

An artsy view of Crosby in his favorite position.

.5 hr. putting on another layer of RTV on the compressor, doing a few countersunk rivets and reaming out some holes on the rear skin.

The compressor should be finally fixed tomorrow then I'll be able to finish off the riveting on the left side top skin.  Then onto the right side.

Upsized these to 4mm since some were a bit off.

1 hr. doing the line of holes that needed upsizing.

Checking my sealant.  Looks good...

... but...  Still a leak in the back which was a bit harder to get to...  Will let the tank empty overnight and put on another layer tomorrow.  Even with this leak it's way better than it was.

Now to deal with this.  As you go further back the holes were more and more off.

One of the more forward holes...

...and one of the more rearward holes.

Time to upsize.  The thing is I didn't want the reamer to just force the holes to align because that would cause the skin(s) to buckle.  Not what we want...  So I started reaming at the forward holes, while holding the skin down tightly and putting downward pressure on the reamer to try and only ream the inner skin down to where the outer skin was.

If I was still seeing the crescent in the in-between holes (ones not reamed yet) that means I was succeeding because I was keeping the proper alignment.  Went all the way down and it went well reaming all the holes.

Deburred the holes and cleaned out between the skins (lots of debris).  Time to rivet with the 4mm rivets.  Making sure to have the right size riveter head (the one on there is too big).

And it's done.  Perfecto!!  No bulges!  I found some more countersunk rivets so I'll do more of those tomorrow.

Quick half hour to seal the compressor leak and do a few countersunk rivets.

I know the right thing to seal the compressor would have been to loosen the fitting and put on some teflon tape, but since this fitting was connected to a pretty immovable tube, I decided to just seal it with a thick layer of RTV adhesive/sealant.  Let that cure overnight and I'll power up the compressor and see how it holds.

Put in some countersunk rivets.  Saw on other blogs that it could end up lumpy here, particularly in the upper left of the photo.  Looks like there's a gap...

But, I put my arm underneath and held up the tray and it closed that gap.  I riveted it and it seems OK.  Would have done more, but my small bag of 3.2mm countersunk rivets was empty.  Hope I can find more elsewhere in the garage...

1.5 hrs. riveting the left rear top skin.

Used this to try and seal the compressor tank.  It improved it, but not completely.  So, plan B to use some type of sealant.  Of course I'll again have to completely empty the tank again - which takes a surprisingly long time...

The holes line up fairly well on the top skin, except for this line at the rear.  I think they're far enough off to require upsizing.  I'll do all the rivets in this line from the last rib back so it doesn't look too odd.

Ready for round 1 of riveting...

And mostly done (except for the ones requiring upsizing).

Other view.