This is the story of riveting the joing between the F-705 bulkead (which is at the
back of the seats) and canopy rails. Maybe it's just me, but these joints were a
bitch.
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I circled in green the rivets that were tough. The others were more or less normal.
The toughes was the one in the bulkhead that's hidden in the crook of the canopy
rail. My offset rivet set could just get in there. The three
downward-going rivets in the canopy rail were also difficult, because I don't have a
bucking bar narrow enough to get in there.
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First, getting the rivet into the bulkhead was tough. This is probably a "QuickBuild
only" problem. Slow builders build the bulkhead before attaching it to the canopy
rail. I had to glue the rivet to my finger to get it into the hole. Otherwise, it
would've taken lots of fingers, eyeballs, or tools crammed into that little space.
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After driving that rivet, I drove the three through the canopy rail. Here you can
see the middle rivet in place, ready to be driven. A cleco is in the right hand hole
(forward) and the left hole (aft) is empty. Just taking this picture was a bitch.
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I used my offset rivet set as a bucking bar. It was long enough to reach up there.
Fortunately these are 3/32" rivets, so it doesn't take much mass to buck them.
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Here are all three, bucked with the offset rivet set. They came out OK.
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