Longerons Drilled

What a milestone! At least it feels like one. Today I drilled both longerons. A last time I verified the correct adjustment and then I just went ahead and drilled 74 holes on the left side. You can hardly see it in the picture. Look at the upper horizontal line of rivets holes that contain clecos now.



Then I went ahead and used the now available clamps to hold down the skin on the right side.


74 holes later (that's 148 all together) all the clamps are gone and clecos fill the freshly drilled holes (not that they would care).


Inside looks good, too.


The whole session took about 3 hours. Maybe I need a new drill bit ...
I also removed all those clecos, the skins and the longerons again as they have to get deburred. So now the fuselage looks just like a few days ago.


When everything is deburred and the primer touched up, I will be ready for the final installation and some serious riveting. The skins will have to get their lower and rear edges broken, too, but that should be fairly easy. I just have to be patient and not try to rush the breaking to make sure I don't ruin the skins right before installation.