My brother in law Nate came over after church this morning and helped me get these two big chunks together.

I was a little hesitant to just sit the center section upside down on a saw horse, but it worked out fine. I fastened a couple of chunks of 1x6 on the fwd sawhorse so that it was more or less the right height and the upside down F-704 tops had a large pad to rest on that allowed for a little wiggling back and forth.

Based on what others have experienced, I was prepared for this to be a bit of a battle, but it really wasn't. I had marked the alignment where everything is supposed to slide together and made some straps out of 2" long 1/2" wide .020 scrap that we used like shoe horns to keep the tailcone skin and bulkhead flange from getting hung up on the tab on the aft lower edge of the baggage ribs.

Honestly, with him on one side, me on the other, each of us with a pair of cleo pliers, It took about 10 minutes to get this done.

Nate is an A&P/IA, and I'm an A&P, but I don't think that we did anything special other than making sure everything was pretty much level before hand. it just worked. I understand that this is only 1/2 the battle. Tomorrow I will attempt to fit the side skins, which everyone says is the real struggle in this process.