Section 32 - Attaching the tail

I've been both looking forward to this step as well as dreading it.  Looking forward to having a full sized fuselage in the garage and one less step in the rapidly declining metal-work steps yet to do.  On the other hand I've been concerned about both pieces fitting in the small work bay of the garage.  Well, I'm happy to report that it does fit...barely.  I have about 14" of space on one end to walk around to get to the other side.  That's enough for me... for now.

Here it is with both halves cleco'd together.  The firewall is pushed up against the garage door and there is still room for me to squeeze around the tail.

Another view of the assembled fuselage.  In this picture I had already started doing some riveting.

This is all I have to squeeze around to get to the other side.  

I'm not sure if I posted this in the past but I printed this little tool on my 3D printer.  It holds the end of my back rivet bar over the rivet while I drive with the rivet gun.  I found that the secret to back-riveting is to make sure the rivet gun does not move around and this little tool really helps!

Here is that same tool with my back-rivet bar in the hole.  I would normally hold the free end of the tool with my left had but it was busy running the camera.  :-)

Hold my beer and watch this!  Sometimes you just have to be creative when finding a way to hold the back-rivet bucking bar against the head of the rivet.  Trying to do most of my riveting solo and this little configuration worked wonderfully.  This is the bottom of the fuselage where the tailcone and fuselage meet.  There are two rows of rivets that have to be driven.  Since I like the looks of a back-riveted rivet I try all kinds of things to make it happen.