Almost done with the inner fuel tank ribs! I played around with my air pressure on the rivet gun tonight and found a pressure that keeps from bending over all of the rivets. I have no idea why the change was necessary since I had been using the exact same pressure I've always used, but for whatever reason it helped to lower the pressure slightly. I do still have a half dozen rivets to do on the upper surface at the leading edge. Those are really awkward to do alone because of the curve, so I may enlist some spousal support there. Next I will proseal and rivet the inboard and outboard ribs (first have to seal and rivet on some support brackets and a few other random items that get attached to those ribs). At least for those ribs the riveting will be pretty easy since it can be done with the squeezer. They'll be a little less messy as well, since you really only have to seal the inner side of the rib flanges - no reason to seal from the rivets outward as long as the inside portion is well sealed.
With all of the ribs in, I'll move to the tank guts - fuel level senders, vent tube and pickup, etc. Then lastly, close out by putting on the rear baffle (where the vast majority of leaks end up). The second tank will definitely go far, far faster than this one. It was a significant learning curve! I will for sure leak test this first tank before starting on the second one though, just in case I find something I need to modify when doing the next one.
