After 6 weeks of being stuck in the doldrums of sealing the tanks, I have resumed actual construction. Van's issued an addendum to chapter 21 instructing me to install a bunch of nut plates on the tanks. Since this had nothing to do with their fuel integrity, it didn't cause much headache. One set of nut plates is around an access hole on the bottom of the skins. That took some gentle skill because I had to mildly contort myself in order to see what I was doing and I needed to balance a 426 rivet on one die of the rivet squeezer, then thread the rivet through an upside down hole and finally squeeze it in place. I only dropped 4 of the 48 rivets that were set that way.
Access hole being equipped with nut plates
The image above probably needs some explanation. The bulges at the top of the image are the outboard skin of the Left fuel tank. There's about 18" of skin both above and below the tank and we're looking at the bottom skin with its access hole. In the foreground, you can see nut plates and set rivets. in the background are the clecos securing nut plates that have yet to be riveted in place. This is where I was having to balance the rivet on the squeezer and gently raise it into the open hole. It was actually a lot of fun.
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