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Section 26 : Mid Fuse Ribs
Section 26: Mid Fuse Ribs and Skin
 Well the fuselage is coming together very well, and much quicker than it seemed it would. This is probably because of more hours per day worked recently with all of the holidays. Did not get many hours in over christmas, but was able to get 4 days in a row with 5-6 hrs a day over new years.  The instructions have you match drill the ribs to the forward spar, but then not match drill the rear spar until after priming, and while working with the next set of ribs (rearward). It would have made more sense to me to do both at the same time, but I followed the directions. I kept re-reading the directions as I felt I was missing things, but then found them later on. Such as the 1015 outer ribs are not done at all with the other ribs in that section, but are done with the ribs in the next section. I missed these the first pass while match drilling, and then caught the mistake when riveting. Since I had not primed the 1015, I also could not rivet the 1018 ribs, until I get another batch together to prime.  I had flipped it over to be able to squeeze the bottom rivets on the forward spar of the rear seat ribs, so I just left it that way to assemble the baggage bulkhead and bagage ribs. That way I did not have to flip it again for the skins either.  I went ahead and assembled the bottom skin before riveting the baggage ribs, and match drilled. I could not add the footwell floor stiffeners with it upside down, and could not flip it over by myself, or stand it up as the ceiling is too low (or the fuselage to big). So I then dissasembled the baggage skin and ribs. Be carefull reading the directions here. I know I studied them a lot, but then either when re-assembling for riveting, or because of still confusion I riveted the forward outside rib 1015-A to the bottom skin with the front of it outside of the vertical post, not inside it. (Although I got 1018 correctly inside of the 1005C bulkhead). I had not riveted it to the bulkhead, but had to remove all the rivets to the bottom skin to be able to move it to the inside.  and was then able to stand it up to attach the stiffeners. Make sure to drill and dimple the TOP side of the stiffeners before riveting. It is almost impossible to dimple the top side of these siffeners after they have been riveted to the bottom skin. (Section 35) 1/8/12  I backriveted the skin on the baggage ribs (without the ribs attached to the rest of the fuselage). This was very quick, but now in retrospect not sure I would do it again as it made riveting the ribs to to the bulkhead very difficult with the skin in the way.  Backriveted the main skin on the fuselage with 12" offset backrivet set. Attached baggage section to main fuselage section. Prosealed the overlapping skins. 20g of proseal worked out great. I am prosealing the skin seams to try to make sure I don't get water or oil into the cabin. On my 50 year old Cesna there is a lot of oil sludge in the bottom of the fuselage, and it causes the plane to smell like oil. I am hoping that a little proseal on the seams will keep any oil running down the bottom skin out of the fueselage. I am not prosealing the rivets.... that would be WAY too much work/mess. The tanks were not as bad as I expected, but still too bad for me to deal with that much proseal.  I riveted a antenna doubler into the rib with the skin, and then into the next rib over into the flange, and into the bulkhead. Probably WAY overkill but was sort of following Tim Olson's lead. Installed nutplates and drilled out center hole for antena cable. Test mounted the antenna. Fits and looks great!.   Rear Fuselage Bottom Skins complete!
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