Then I flipped the tail cone over to put the bulkhead in. Now I had the first chance to look at the inside of the cone since I started riveting the pieces together. It was no surprise that the inside rubbing on many sharp edges around the saw horses and some of my failed attempts to pull a half seated rivet into position by pulling on it from the inside with pliers had created scratches, breaking the primer in some spots. So, I marked these with blue tape for a touch up.
After putting the aft bulkhead in place with clecos I noticed that the following things to do (routing a cable, placing a thread, mounting the static port) would all interfere with my intended touch-up, so I decided to do it now and hope not to nick anything else later. While I was at it I decided to give the rows of rivets a thin layer of primer on the inside just in case I happen to end up in costal regions frequently and salt water would collect on the bottom of the tail.
As the primer dries quickly to the touch but it needs a few hours to really settle and become mechanically stable to abrasion I decided to call it a night and close the shop early.
Now that the tail cone is using up most of my workspace in the shop I've noticed that I never read about a confined and limited workspace in any of the blogs. It appears that everybody else has at least a hangar to store or build parts and then the better half of a nice two car garage waiting at home. Well, I am not that blessed and I think that some out there thinking about building an RV have similarly limited space and might have a concern about that, maybe even keeping them from starting the project.
So I think I'll use one day these days and document a bit more detailed where I am building and storing my parts. If it helps only one guy out there to decide to go for it and start another RV it will have been well worth it.
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