Bottom half of tailcone mostly assembled!

Overall, great progress this weekend.  No major mistakes, a few drilled rivets and one case of dropping the bucking bar inside in the tailcone.  Oops.  Many hundreds of very nice rivets set.

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What happens when you drop a bucking bar inside:IMG_20150111_173753219_HDR

The mistake, close up. The only thing I’m worried about is the proximity of the bottom extra hole to the messed up hole, but I don’t think it’s close enough to cause us major problems.IMG_20150111_184725811

Randy’s helpful labeling:

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Here’s the backside:

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Berck: 9 hours, Randy: 6 hours, Tracey: 6 hours, Jonah: 1 hour

Tailcone assembly starts in earnest.

Berck used his hose clamp tool to attach the rubber sleeve on the cleco pliers.  It had been continually coming off.  He’s so clever!

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Van’s said to drill new rivet holes on either side of the bad hole and “build on.”  So we did.  There’s also some little holes to stop drill the cracks.  Better picture tomorrow.IMG_20150110_131505
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We realized after riveting in all the nut plates for one of the inspection portals that, despite the instructions never having said to do so, we needed to dimple the nut plates. So those rivets had to all be drilled out.IMG_20150110_151308821IMG_20150110_144648551

There was much clecoing, and then we got to start riveting.

IMG_20150110_154251803 IMG_20150110_172932462 IMG_20150110_172942992Jonah: 5 hours, Berck: 7 hours.