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Finished riveting the firewall together (except for the recess). I back-riveted the rest of it, which ended up being pretty easy. I boofed a few rivets when I didn’t have the assembly firmly pushed down onto the back-riveting plate. No big deal–drill out the rivet. I’d have to say that back-riveting is easier than squeezing. I spent a lot of time maneuvering the squeezer for one or two rivets, when I can hammer 5 rivets in a row with the back-rivet set.
The toughest rivets were the inside ones on the floor support angles. The rivets are right up in the crevice of the angle. I had to drill out a couple of those and redo them. With the angle sloping there, I really thought they were going to tilt over. But they ended up setting nicely. I made a few small dents in the angle with the rivet gun. I’ll sand out the dents and re-prime.
[edit 1/13/2005: Do yourself a favor and mark out the holes on the outer side of the angle for attaching the floor stiffeners. It’s much easier to do it at this point than when the firewall is upside down and attached to the fuselage.]
The firewall looks awesome and feels solid.
