Final Assembly of the Tail Begins

So this is the final push for the bottom of the tail assembly.  It is all dimpled, deburred and primed.  It has been re-assembled with clecos holding it together.

Last shot of tail with clecos.

Tail wheel mounting was first to be riveted.

The F779, F712 and F711 all went together without a hitch.  All my bending, pushing prodding and cursing worked and the rivets went in just fine.  I did have two oops rivets and two pulled rivets.  See that gray bar in the photo just above?  That the actual steel assembly that the tail wheel mount attaches to.  Under it are three rivets that I had no idea how to put in, so they got replaced with pulled rivets.

After this was done I got to assembling the rest of the tail with clecos.  Once I did that I fit the F-779 assembly into the tail and started riveting.  This came out much nicer than I expected.  The pieces pulled together nicely and sealed very well.

Rivets in F-773 and F-779

That is pretty much what I accomplished yesterday.  Today, I will tackle the rest of the riveting.  I’d like to think I can rivet all the rest today, but that isn’t likely.  Too many rivets.