1.4 Hours -
One of the best things about working with metal is that you can fix many of your smaller mistakes. Today, I gave myself that opportunity.
Back-riveting is one of the simplest riveting methods, but I managed to screw it up on one of the right rudder stiffeners. It wasn’t a major mistake, it could have been worse, I won’t have to order any new parts, and I can probably hide it during paint, but I still feel like an idiot for making a stupid mistake.
I managed to back-rivet all the stiffeners to the bottom of the right elevator skin without any problems. However, on the third top stiffener, I drove two rivets, then, on number three…whoops! Actually, it was more of a “S***…F*** Me!”
I was using duct tape to hold the skin open enough to allow for the proper angle on the rivet gun. However, I didn’t pay attention between rivets and the duct tape caused the skin to move. The area I was working on moved right off the back rivet plate. When I started to drive the next rivet, I could immediately hear that something was different.
Fortunately, I only hit the rivet twice, and the trigger was only partially pulled, but it still mangled the hole and put a small crease in the skin where it was jammed against the edge of the back-rivet plate. It looked worse than it was (I think). To fix it, I re-drilled the hole (it was slightly miss-shaped and the rivet would no longer fit), and then re-dimpled it with the pop-rivet dimpler. This not only prepared the hole for riveting, but it also substantially flattened out the small crease. Then, I made a second attempt to rivet it. This also helped to further flatten the dent. The final product was ok. I just wish I would have done this on the bottom of elevator instead of the top! Even if paint manages to hide it, I’ll know it is there.
Riveting is a noisy job...at least back riveting is quick!
One stiffener in, a bunch to go.
Back riveting the right elevator stiffeners.
I didn't have the back rivet plate under the rivet leaving a small crease on the skin. It could have been worse...build on.
After getting all the swearing out of my system and fixing the mistake, I finished attaching all of the right elevator stiffeners without further problems.
All the right elevator stiffeners are riveted.
Next, I started to prep the left elevator skin for stiffener attachment. Basically, this meant pulling the blue vinyl from the inside of the skin and cutting strips off the outside. What a pain!
While the blue vinyl does protect the alclad surface, it's a pain to pull off. This big pile is from the inside of one elevator.
As a side note, todays work also put me past the 100 hour mark on the build. That means I have roughly 1/15th done!
