We came back from vacation a couple of days early to just relax and do things we wanted to around the house.  For me that was to work on the LAST fuel tank.  Well, when we got home, the Falls City FBO left a message on the answering machine stating that they had a Cessna 152 available for instruction.  SOooo, instead of working on the fuel tank the last couple of days, I have been flying.

I figured that it would take me several hours to get proficient again.  This 152 has a few minor differences than the 150 they rented last year, but within 2 hours of aerial manuevers and pattern work, I was landing very consistently.  LANDINGS are my "achilles heel".  I was pretty happy to be shooting good landings so quickly after such a long flying dormancy.

Between flying, I was able to get the tank ribs and stiffeners dimpled.  Again, I used the tank dimple dies I bought from Cleaveland Tool.  They worked really well on the last tank.  My rivets came out really good (at least as good as those planes I saw flying at Osh).

Just a shot of the inside of the tank skin after dimpling with the c-frame.  I know.... real exciting stuff here.

The tank skin dimpling is complete.  Let the sealing begin.

My arm got fairly fatigued dimpling the skin with this 16 oz dead blow hammer.  It is not that the hammer is really heavy, but you swing this thing like 10,000 times (thats what it feels like anyway).  It is amazing how warm the head on the hammer gets after doing half of the tank skin.  I alternated heads every couple of dozen rivets, but after doing the right wing, I think that this hammer is ready to retire.  Time for another trip to Harbor Freight for another hammer.

I just couldn't wait to get started sealing the fuel tank.  Are you kidding me???

Sealing seemed to progress a little faster the second time around.  I must be getting proficient with this tank sealant stuff.

Just a shot of the outside.  I am pretty happy with my riveting results on the stiffeners.  They all sit nice and flush.  Back riveting is the easy part....