January 17, 2004

Spent a while in the morning fooling around on the lake.  A lot of the time was spent chasing Caesar (our German Shepard) who kept taking the pucks.  Surface is rough due to snow melting into slush, etc. and then freezing.

1st attempt at clamping the VS frame down getting ready to rivet it.

Shot from another angle.  Turned out this way was a pain in the butt, so we un-clamped it and just laid it on its side to squeeze.  We were unable to squeeze the center rivet on the front-middle rib.  The flanges around the lightening holes kept throwing us off, so we decided to try shooting our first rivet.  Jeremy was on the rivet gun, and I worked the bar.  Worked perfectly, I'm glad to say.  I didn't get to practice shooting & bucking much in the SportAir class, so this little skill had me a trifle worried, but it worked out just fine.

Framework is riveted together (except for the bottom ribs, which are left open for access to the middle ribs).

Attempt #2 at clamping the tail down.  We'll see how this works.

the bottom-front rib is removed, getting ready to rivet the middle-front rib.  Time to quit for the night; we're headed out to dinner then to the rodeo.