The party last night was great, they were totally surprised, and I got to dance with my bride. 

Today, I needed to dimple the center section of my skins.  The pneumatic squeezer's yoke will only reach the holes on the perimeter of the parts.  I've seen people build fancy "boxes" for their C-yoke, and I thought I'd end up doing the same, but I wanted to build airplane parts, not shop accessories that would take up storage space... and a simpler solution just "came to me" as it was time to work!

I used those foam floor mats I have been standing on... three on each side got me REALLY close to the height I needed.  Then, to keep from scratching the skins on that metal plate, I added one more thing...

I had a roll of foam in a bag up on the shelf from some upholstery work my wife had done.  I rolled it out, and the foam ended up just 1/8" over the metal plate.  I cut out that spot, slightly undersized, so it would grip the plate and stay in place.  This was PERFECT... I could slide the skin around, and it wouldn't even touch the dimple on the male die.  But, a gentle push on the skin would compress the foam and set the dimple die in place.  Whack, whack with the mallet, got a perfect dimple and no scratches on the skin.  Gotta love it!

The holes nearest the leading edge are the toughest to do solo, and the family was gone when I was working on this.  Duct tape makes a great assistant.  I just taped the skins open...

Gives easy access to the inner holes.  I've removed the blue protective plastic around my rivet lines inside.  Those exposed metal areas will be primed, the blue areas will not.  I'll remove the blue protective plastic after priming, but before final closure.

The duct tape worked very well.  After I took this photo, I added one more thing to the process.  Just as an added safety measure to protect the skin, I draped a denim shirt (you could use a towel or anything like that) over the vertical part of the skin.  This was for two reasons:  one, the skin would be protected from contact with the vertical dimple shaft, and, two, if the duct tape broke, the skin wouldn't spring back down on the c-frame tool and gouge the skin.

After a couple more hours of edge prep and other details, I strung some weed-eater line between the garage door opener and one of the side tracks.  I hung some plastic on the garage door and put a drop-cloth on the floor.  I opened the garage door to it's 2" spot and latched it there.  I used additional weed-eater line to hang all the parts up for spraying, and MEK'd them while they were hanging up.

All clean, ready to prime.  Again, I'm using Sherwin William's GBP988 self-etching rattle-can primer.  Two minutes doesn't sound like a long time, but when you're shaking a can for "two minutes after you hear the steel ball inside", well, if you've done it you know what I mean!  ;-)

I did two very light coats... it's important (as I learned on the test kit) not to try for total coverage on the first coat... you'll just get puddles and runs.

Look hazy?  It was, a bit, but I was fully protected.  Painter's respirator, etc.  Please don't do this without good ventilation and proper safety equipment.

After the second coat, this is how they looked.  The parts dry VERY fast, but we had a last-minute invitation to go to a friends' house for dinner, so this is where I left off Sunday night.  Everything is DONE and ready for final assembly on the horizontal tail.  The next step involves driving rivets, but it's going to have to wait for another couple of weekends.

Next weekend, the 13th/14th, I'm going to be in San Antonio with a couple of friends.  We're flying down to Stinson Municipal, a historic airfield that has hosted the likes of the Wright Brothers, Lindbergh, and Earhart, and driving from there to Hondo for the EAA show.  Saturday night, we have tickets to the EAA banquet to hear Mike Melville talk about his historic flight on SpaceShipOne!