Skidplate Fabrication Part 2

I went a little bit out of order.  You're supposed to tap out the hole first, and then put it on the rear bulk head to drill the rivet holes in the skid plate.  But since I didn't have a tap handy, I went ahead and did the rivet holes drilling first.  In this case it didn't make any difference.  Next day I borrowed a 3/8" x 16 tpi tap and handle from a guy at work known for having a nice tool collection, drilled out the hole and started threading the hole with the tap.

As you can see, it gets harder as you go, until...

Uh-oh.  Broke the jaws on my friend's tap handle.  What are my options?

Vice grips can do a lot of things, but turning a tap isn't one of them (seemed worth a shot though).

This doesn't work either:

So I went to Home Depot to get a new beefier handle.  I'm sure I'll use it again sometime.

So with lots of turning, unturning (to clear out chips), and turning again, plus a few drops of bike chain oil, I eventually ended up with a nicely threaded one-inch hole in the bottom of the skid plate to screw the rear tie down eye bolt into.  Following day I returned the tap and asked my co-worker if he wanted me to replace the broken tap handle and he said he had extras and not to bother.  We'll see if he lets me borrow any more of his tools in the future.

With the skidplate fabrication done, we're ready to rivet together the bulkhead assembly, and here's what that looks like (well one side anyway):

Note that all 95 (or so) rivets are done except the two on the left and two on the right.  There's no way that the rivet squeezer I have with its two-inch "C" yoke was going to reach those two rivet holes, what with the "ears" for the main stabilator bearings on the reverse side being in the way.  I've mastered (sort of) the hand rivet squeezer.  Now it's time to learn to use the pneumatic rivet hammer.