Section 10 - Aft Fuselage (VS match-drilling; top skin; EAA Tech Counselor)

I'm still slowly progressing through the last few pages of Section 10.  I have about 2 months and 3 pages left, so the next set of posts will be few and far between.  Note to self - order the fuselage kit well in advance of finishing the wing kit.

In the interim, I contacted a very nice and helpful EAA Tech Counselor (thanks, Joe F.!!), and brought him a representative example of my work (left elevator) as well as samples of the way that I'm currently dimpling and riveting, since they have changed slightly (see past posts).  Fortunately, I can say that my current dimpling and riveting techniques are on-par.  My earlier dimpling was a little shallow, likely due to dimpling with the vinyl still on the skins (I stopped that practice with the aft fuselage section, and now dimple with all vinyl removed).  Moreover, the overly cloudy look to the skins/rivets banged with the mushroom set might just have been schmutz accumulated on the polished head, which wasn't so polished anymore.  Joe used a Scotchbrite pad to clean the mushroom head surface, and it looks and rivets better.  Moreover, the Scotchbrite could remove the "cloudy" surface on the skins, revealing rivets and dimples that were just fine.  Phew - Build on!  Below are a few steps completed over the past ~week:

Attached the vertical stabilizer to the aft fuselage assembly with AN3 bolts and temporary nuts, to #12 match-drill two holes:

Section 10 - Aft Fuselage (aft deck)

I've been progressing a bit slower these past two weeks, largely because I placed my order for the wing kit and found the ship date is not until the end of January.  Since I'm not doing the tailfins attach step (Section 11) until I join the aft fuselage to the mid fuselage, nor do I yet have the skills to do the fiberglass work (Section 12; EAA SportAir Workshop will likely be in May 2019), I essentially have only a few more pages of the Empennage kit to complete over the next 7 weeks.  After I finish Section 10, I'll reorganize the workshop, hang some of the completed parts on the wall, and prepare to receive the wing kit.

A fellow VAF member took a look at some of my blog pictures, and spoke with me about a few concerns he had about some of my dimples (thanks Henry!).  I think I'm dimpling much better (see my post a few weeks ago about removing the vinyl, proper tightness of the dimple dies, etc), and two-dimensional pictures can sometimes be deceiving to the viewer.  However, I'm far too much of a novice to think that what I am doing is completely correct ... so, I'll be calling the Big Guns (an EAA Tech Counselor) to take a look sometime during the next few weeks.  In the meantime, I completed the aft deck (Page 10-27), which took a lot longer than I had anticipated.

I decided to prime all aft deck parts prior to assembly - although three of these parts are alclad, I deburred and scratched them more than usual and thought they might benefit from a coat of primer.  I was itching to paint something anyway ...