Side Skins Clecoed

This was a short day as I was going to the range early in the morning meeting old friends and shooting an IPSC match with them. So I didn't start in the shop before 2 pm.
I clecoed the side skins on and routed the wire for the trim servo along the left skin and installed the thread that will later pull the control cables for the Stabilator through the tail cone.





The I riveted the static ports into the side skins and ran into the same problem as most first time builders.
I had never removed the mandrel from these static port rivets and it was not so easy as the side skins are very wobbly and I didn't want to bend them while banging on the mandrel with a hammer. I followed Dave's advice (as often) and clamped a piece of wood behind the rivet (after drilling a whole in the wood for clearance) and THEN banging on it. While my heart stopped beating with every blow I threw on that poor mandrel, it get the job done and the skin didn't take any harm.
That concluded the building for today and I let the rest sit for the next day which was supposed to be another short shop day - although for different reason than what I thought.