Had my riveting partner a bit this evening and was finally able to knock out the rivets in the bottom curved corners. I back-riveted them from the inside while she held the bucking bar on the outside. Worked well and was able to get the bulkhead tabs tight to the skin.

Did a little more work to finish up the aft rivets. Did a little QC of the overall tailcone work and found about five rivets that sat a little proud and I drilled them out and redid them.

Moved on to installing the battery tray ribs. Following the guidance of other builders before me, I installed the ribs to the skin prior to riveting the battery tray attach angles. Worked great.

Riveted the aft portion of the side skins to the longerons. These were fine except the ones that coincide with bulkhead tabs. It was very tough to get those to lay tight. Had to redo several times before getting something passable.

Reflected on a big step: the riveting quality has gotten a lot better. Turn the gun down! I'm running like 30psi and using the flush set with the urethane ring. My confidence in setting flush rivets is much improved. I did back-rivet some against the plate but found the best quality in descending order: squeezer, back-rivet with partner on bucking bar, solo bucking bar and flush set. I did let my wife use the the flush set with me on the bucking bar for hard to reach places and those came out fine too.

Going on vacation for a week tomorrow so this was a good milestone to hit.

One last item to take care of and that was installation of the static ports I bought from Cleaveland tools. Cleaned and scuff the skins around the ports and scuffed the ports themselves. Mixed up a small amount of tank sealant and applied and taped. It can cure while I'm gone. Remaining static system parts should be here when I return.