It's getting hard to name these posts without just listing the parts, since everything seems to be a "bulkhead" now. I riveted the 706 bulkhead together as much as I could. A few of the parts remain just clecoed until later on when other parts come into play. The verdict is in on the spray can primer in cold weather: it's awful. It's probably not fair since I'm sure it'll be much harder in a few weeks, but at least as of today, it was still incredibly soft. My hands were black after handling the parts for riveting. So I will use that stuff sparingly and go back to the Ekoprime and Ekopoxy for most stuff.
For the rib that extends back from the baggage bulkhead (on the floor), I left out a few rivets to the angle stiffener. If I go with the Dynon system for an autopilot, from what I can tell the taped holes are where the mounting bracket for the pitch servo will get attached. So I'm leaving them out just in case versus having to drill them out later.
Just a few rivets and the whole 706 bulkhead was assembled. Knowing which holes to leave empty for the time being is a real exercise in attention to detail.
Next up was to move rearward to the next couple of bulkheads. These are relatively straight forward. Each bulkhead gets holes drilled for rudder cables, wiring and static line routing. These bulkheads were quite warped, so I had to do some fluting as well. The 709 (half circle shaped one) was incredibly warped. I don't know if I got the holes lined up well enough or not. I won't really know until I see how it fits the skin.
The 710 bulkhead has a piece of angle across the top that eventually attaches to the aft deck. I cut that to length and match drilled it.
The 711 bulkhead gets two bars that will stick up through the aft deck and attach to the horizontal stabilizer. The plans call out the length of these bars, but I'm tired of getting burned by the measurements in the plans. Far too often the plans indicate a ridiculous specific length (down to a 1/32") that ends up being just a hair too short. That boggles my mind, because there is usually plenty of space to buffer by adding an extra 1/16-1/8" or something onto the material to ensure proper rivet edge distance and clearance. I've had to remake parts that were the exact size indicated by the plans, but still too short for comfort. So for these bars, I decided just to cut the stock in half for now. I'll drill and fit the bars, then cut them once I'm sure all of my rivet distances are fine.
