Well, the time had come to fit the aft skins (temporarily).

Fitting these skins was exciting. Fitting these skins was a pain.

Alignment, for the most part, was not very difficult. The aft section was pretty straightforward. The skins resist the bend but the holding power of the clecoes makes quick work of bending them to the desired shape. The aft-most bulkhead needs the lower holes drilled. I had some fluting in the way, which first had to be removed and added back outside of the rivet zone.

I taped the stiffeners in place, per the recommendation in the instructions (I think…).

The forward skin is where things became difficult. The 706 bulkhead did not want to align with the holes. After some investigation, this turned out to be because the stiffeners were too long, taped too far forward, or both. I wound up have to remove the stiffeners with the skins in place, which was possible but not easy, and adjust the length. This would allow the 706 to sit aft enough for the holes to line up.

Once everything was lined up, I match drilled everything and drilled the stiffeners.

It was also at this time I chose to fit the aft bulkhead gussets.

The bulkheads offered a lot of movement without the skins in place. Because of this, I only felt comfortable drilling the gussets in place once those bulkheads had some additional support in their final position–offered by the top skins. Without this, I risked securing the bulkheads in a position that wouldn’t line up with the top skins–a big problem.

However, doing it my way required I spend some time in the aft fuselage, which was cramped and frustrating work.