More F-705 Bulkhead Work (1/2/12)

1.5 Hours –

The F-705 bulkhead structure is finally starting to come together.  However, there is still a lot of work to be done.

The first thing I did today was to rivet the F-705L shim and F-705K plate to the F-705F channel.  Once those were attached, I also riveted the F-705J angle to the channel.  This was pretty easy riveting since everything could be reached with the pneumatic squeezer (best aircraft tool ever!).

The F-705K, J, and L are riveted to the F-705F channel. I guess this is a support for the seat backs??

Next, I clecoed the entire F-705 bulkhead frame together and final drilled the areas that will be riveted soon.  After doing this, I had to take a break to figure out the best way to position the F-705G angles for match drilling.

The F-705 frame is clecoed together...still a lot of work to do.

After a brief internet search, I realized that no special measures were needed to position and clamp the hefty F-705G angles.  However, this quarter-inch material isn’t much fun to drill, and I ended up with a slight edge distance issue with one rivet on the left angle.  For now, I don’t think I’m going to worry about it since it is only one of many rivets that will hold this part.  In addition, the angle won’t be riveted in place for quite some time, so I may change my mind later down the road.

It took me awhile to figure out how to do this, but I finally got the F-705G angle clamped in place while keeping everything aligned.

The F-705G angles were tricky to drill. The hole in the top left corner of the lower face of the angle is questionable for edge distance, but since there are so many other rivets here, I'm not going to worry.

The only thing left to do with the F-705G angles is to make a slot in each part.  The slot is only needed for tip-up canopies, and it will catch the canopy latch mechanism.  This should be easy enough to make using my drill press and some filing, but I didn’t feel like tackling the task today.

Since I'm making a tip-up canopy, I'll need to cut slots (blue outline) in the F-705G angles.