It took a while but finally I can declare victory for the tail-cone riveting. In the end I back riveted a bit over half of it, but once I decided it was necessary to crawl inside the thing and work it with “Rosie” outside on the rivet gun, we went ahead and completed everything conventionally. The final tailcone statistics include one “oops” rivet, about a dozen drill-outs, with perhaps a few more after a Technical Counsellor visit that I’ve arranged for next week. I managed to do all the inside work without getting stuck or requiring paramedics.
Somewhere in the tail-cone resides the 5,000th rivet driven so far in the project. Only another 15,000+ to go…
As for the small “ding” mark where I dropped a bucking bar (to the left of centre of the only blue plastic bit left, last picture), I’ll get some advice on how best to repair it. It’s easy to access, so drilling for stress relief, dimpling and installing a flush rivet is a likely strategy.
Since the tail-cone will now be in the way while the wings and fuse are built, I made a little trolley on wheels (with brakes!) out of ply from one of the Van’s crates, so I can easily move the thing around.