Posting this on the strangest of Easters in memory – Quarantine 2020. I hope anyone reading this is staying safe and doing well. All this seems silly in light of what our society is facing. I write this to uncouple a bit from what is happening around us and keep the girls engaged on the build to help with their adjusting also.
Starting in December 2019, I started the process of preparing and riveting the top skins to each wing. They are big and relatively thin pieces of aluminum that must be carefully handled to avoid damage. But once attached to the ribs, they provide tremendous strength to the wing. One of the most laborious tasks was deburring each hole and then dimpling them so that each rivet will be flush to the wing skin when attached.
As you’ll see through the pictorial narrative below, I could not have completed this section with help from Grace and Anna. Primary because i had to hold the rivet gun at the bottom side of the skin, while Anna held a large, round bucking bar that allowed me to back-rivet the assembly. Grace was super helpful placing rivets into all the hundreds of holes and adding a piece of adhesive to retain them before riveting. We finished this section early February 2020.
Wing skin doublers that are placed under the area where you walk on the wing to get into the plane 
Left inboard skins getting ready for riveting 
Wing doublers on inboard ribs 
Inboard wing skins attached to ribs and spars 
Left top skin getting ready to be riveted 
Anna helping rivet by hold a back riveting bucking bar 
Grace helping place new rivets into the top skins 
Cleco art by Grace 
Left top wing skin being leveled before riveting using a laser 
Left top wing skin getting riveted 
A good day of progress 
Group shot after a day riveting top skins 
Finished left top wing skin 
Finished right top wing skin 
Finished left top wing skin 
Finished right top wing skin 
Group shot after a day riveting top skins
As always, below is the time lapse of this build. I’m trying to figure out how to get royalty free music for background so I can change it up. I can’t remember how I did it previously, so if you know – leave a tip in the comments!