More progress this week.

Applying the heating elements to the second course.

Insulating the area to be stress relieved.

Interior insulation.

Phillip Pierre, the tech who wired this whole mess up, monitors the heating process. There were ten sensors, two of which were placed on the adjacent dome rivet area to verify if the the heat was high enough to cause us to replace the rivets. It wasn't.

Backhead plate ready to fit.

Interior view of backhead plate.

Backhead plate ready to weld which will start on Monday. The variation in gap is not really as bad as it looks. The old sheet is not flat so the new sheet is not on the same plane consistently. This will be corrected as welding proceeds.

346 tank "riveting". Scott Lefever closes his eyes when he pulls the trigger however the camera makes this look a lot more dramatic than it is. All you can see with the naked eye is a few sparks when the head is popped on.