Riveted Some Things On the Right Rear Spar

December 14, 2011

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Tonight was a pretty exciting night. Not only because I got the flap brace and aileron gap fairing matchdrilled, but because I got to set 32 rivets I had previously skipped (see my previous rear spar riveting post from almost a year ago).

On to the pictures…

Here I am matchdrilling the flap brace.

I admit, this was a little posed.

Next, I matchdrilled the two aileron attachment brackets. For both brackets, I had to do a little filing to make sure the top edge fit nicely in the radius of the rear spar.

This is all that was needed.

After getting everything on the rear spar matchdrilled, I removed the components and also took the lower skins off. Now I’ve got great access to the rear spar rivets I’d previously missed.

I didn’t really miss them, it’s just that the spar was facing down, and I didn’t have a good way to squeeze them with my no-hole yoke. I could have shot and bucked them laying on my back on the floor, but I knew an opportunity like this was coming soon (well, almost a year later).

bottom skins are off, time for some riveting.

This bottom rivet was one of the troublesome ones before. I shot this from the top side, and it was a piece of cake.

I think there were about 11 of those or so, with 6 more on the rear spar reinforcement bar. Next, though, was this dreaded rivet.

If you remember from that last post, I had butchered this pretty badly 2 or three times, and Van’s had responded that a -5 rivet would work well here if the hole was too enlarged. (They also said a slightly undersized rivet head would be okay if you could engage the entire circumference of the hole.)

Yikes.

First drilled with #40 to make sure I'm on the center.

Then to #30.

Pretty good drillout.

The enlarged hole wasn’t really that enlarged, so I made the executive decision to stick with the -4 rivet.

This time, I set it from the top. Yes, there is a tiny smiley, but it's not worth trying to fix again.

asdf

And a nice shot head on the other side. (Sorry, had to use the flash to see.)

Finally, I deburred and riveted the aileron attachment brackets onto the spar.

After rechecking the plans, I noticed the lower rivet here should be flush. Really? Bummer. I'll have to get a threaded attachment for my countersinks to reach this one.

Same outboard bracket, this time the rib rivets.

Lot's of good shop heads.

Yup, there it is on the lower left. (I didn't show the legend, but this is a flush head).

Whoa, same on the lower rivet here (this is for the left wing, so it's mirrored for the right).

More riveting here.

Nice.

Umm, I don’t know why I uploaded this pictuer…

Redundant much?

1.0 Hours, 32 rivets, one messed up rivet from almost a year ago, finally drilled out. (I’m splitting up the hour into 30 minutes on the ribs, 30 minutes on the wing.)

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Finished the Left Flap

November 26, 2011

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Whoa, two days in a row! With just a couple hours of riveting left, I knew I was close to finishing when I got the bottom skin on yesterday, so I made some time today to finish up.

Once again, I wasn’t in the habit of taking a lot of pictures, though, so you get some intermediate ones, and a couple finished pics.

After getting some of the rib-to-skin rivets set, I clecoed the spar in place with the hinge along the bottom edge, then flipped the flap so the top skin was up, and did my every-other-rivet taping.

I couldn't get a slick way to rivet the last two rib rivets at the bottom of the picture, so I followed the plans and used blind rivets.

Before actually riveting any of the skins on, I made sure to do the blind rivets for the spar-to-rib rivets.

These are all LP4-3s.

Whoa. I ran out after the exact correct amount. I’ll have to order more before moving on to the right flap.

Empty...

Then, I totally stopped taking pictures, but finished the flap.

Nice and shiny. No dings at all.

The bottom is nice and shiny, too, and only a few very small dings.

I’m starting to realize that I’m going to have dings in the project, and they are going to be visible. I think the whole polished airplane thing went out the window, so hopefully by the time I paint the airplane, all the dings will be filled, and you will be none the wiser.

2 hours today, and 164 total rivets all over the place. Whew.

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Posted by Andrew

Riveted Left Flap Lower Skin

November 25, 2011

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Whoa, Andrew’s building again. I realize that if I make that explanation every time I post, then someone clicking through the posts without seeing the date stamps is going to be a little confused. Anyway, I got a fair amount done today, and I’m feeling pretty motivated to keep some progress going.

Let’s get to the pictures.

First up, I have a whole bunch of primed parts, and I felt like clecoing some together (always helps the motivation to see assemblies rather than parts).

Here’s the left lower flap skin along with the ribs. I was very careful to review the plans to make sure I got all of the flanges pointing the correct way.

And yes, the flap is upside down here.

Here it is right side up. The plans or instructions don’t really give you a lot of hints on when to set which rivets, so you kind of have to think ahead. More on that later.

It's starting to look like a flap.

Next up, let’s get the top skin ready. First thing, I removed the blue vinyl and deburred all the holes on this side (I may have de-blued last time, I can’t remember).

Deburred and edge finished. Piece of boring cake.

Next, I started to de-blue the top of the skin, but I wanted to put some clecoes in the aft portion of the skin so the skin wasn’t resting on the workbench. This worked out pretty well for me.

Scuffed and ready to flip for more deburring.

I'm about halfway through pulling off this blue vinyl. It was cold out (so why do you have the garage door open?) and the vinyl adhesive was extra sticky.

After more deburring, I broke out the hand squeezer and put some new blue tape on my dies.

Ready for action.

Of course, I didn’t get any pictures…I’m out of practice…

I did take the skin outside after some more prep and get a coat of primer on it. While that was drying, I turned my attention back to the ribs and the bottom skin built-in spar.

I set 4 of these AN47AD4-4 rivets. Pretty simple here to squeeze these.

Then, I riveted on the nutplate on the left side of this picture, and riveted each of the AD4- rivets shown.

Great manufactured heads.

Great shop heads.

Then, I backed up a few steps and riveted the other angle bracket onto the inboard half of the spar. The instructions have you do this pretty early, but I waited until everything was primed.

Same thing. Good manufactured heads here.

And good shop heads here.

Once the top skin was dry, I brought it back inside and got everything 50% clecoed.

This part is exciting, there's riveting coming soon!

After putting some of the AN426AD3-3.5 rivets in, I put tape over each of the heads, and riveted.

Ready to rivet.

Then, I took out the remaining clecos, put more rivets in, moved the tape to the unriveted heads, riveted, then removed all the tape.

(Also, I cleaned up the skin before taking this picture, because I want it to look good for you guys.)

Wuhoo! 100 rivets.

I followed the directions mostly, except I was able to buck the 3rd rivet up on the left side. The plans allow you to use blind rivets there if you want.

Blind rivets in the aft two holes.

Wuhoo. 2.5 hours, 100 rivets. I’m back at it!

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Ten Right Aileron Rivets

September 14, 2011

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Well, I always love setting a few rivets, and I tend to work in little spurts so that I can set at least a few. The next few rivets in the project are the ones for the aileron spar reinforcements.

First off (no pictures), I grabbed the right aileron spar and reinforcement plates I deburred and scuffed yesterday, cleaned them, and got them outside in the driveway (on a cardboard box, on my trash bin) for some priming.

While those were drying, I deburred and countersunk the counterbalance pipe. This was way easier than I thought it was going to be.

To check countersink depth, I grabbed a CSP-4 (is it CS4-4?) I can’t believe I can’t remember the rivet number…anyway, and countersunk until it was just deeper than needed.

This may be a couple clicks too deep. I'll back it off on the next ones.

Then, time to deburr the aileron leading edge.

Yup, that's what I'm doing...

With that accomplished, I followed in many other builders’ footsteps and dimpled the leading edge by clecoing it to the countersunk counterbalance pipe balanced on a 2×4.

Mine didn't seem to move around much, so I'm glad I didn't waste the time duct taping small dowel rods down the 2x4 to steady things.

I fished out my (Paul’s) c-frame die and my #30 male dimple die.

Was this picture really necessary?

And, after a whack and a half…

Wuhoo! Looks like a great dimple!

A shot without the rivet...this worked great for me...like everyone else.

Okay, inside with the pipe for some cleaning, and outside to prime (now that it’s no longer being used as a female dimple die for the leading edge skin.

Let’s start on some more deburring, dimplineg edge-finishing, and priming.

I snatched up the two leading edge ribs, and spent about 45 minutes edge finishing all the little crevices with a needle file.

This part of building an airplane sucks.

But, after a few minutes, I had a deburred, edge-finished, and scuffed leading edge rib. Time for dimpling!

Yup. Dimpling!

After that, more cleaning, and those went outside for priming, too.

Just in time for my spar and reinforcement plates to dry!

Okay, which of these rivets can I set? (Ten minutes of staring passes...)

Okay, this is the outboard side. Those two AN426 rivets are just in there for hole alignment. They can NOT be set at this time, only the three on the left.

Of which I've set one.

Look at that beautiful shop head.

More rivet setting, and moving over to the inboard side.

Over there, the three inner-most rivets can be set, along with the two AN426AD3-4 rivets for the K1000-3 nutplate, shown.

The foreground-most holes are for the aileron bracket and the main rib attachments, the clecoed row is for the leading edge rib attachments.

I guess I needed a picture of the manufactured heads.

I think this picture means the counterbalance pipe and leading edge ribs are primed.

Sweet. Let's go find some blind rivets.

The plans call for these.

One in each side...

For a total of ten rivets tonight.

Good night. A few parts primed, a few parts assembled.

1.5 hours. 10 Rivets. Wuhoo! (Time for bed, I’m exhausted.)

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Posted by Andrew

Started Riveting Right Top Skins

August 2, 2011

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So last night, I forgot to tell you about deburring and dimpling the rest of the ribs before clecoing the skins on. I don’t know why I forgot, or think it’s important, but I did.

Okay, tonight, I headed out to the garage after bedtime because I am too excited to get going on these top skins.

What can I do quietly? Maybe squeeze some of the more accessible rivets.

Here's the guide for wing skin riveting.

And the legend…

It's basically like paint by numbers, but for nerdy pilots.

So, I broke out the squeezer, sat down with some music, some rivets (of various sizes per above) and my cleco pliers and started in on it.

Here’s the first top skin rivet.

First top skin rivet!

The first three! (I'm such a dork.)

It turns out you can reach the bottom (rear spar) to skin rivets, and the inboard edge. I needed a closer look at the inboard edge part to make sure I didn’t rivet any of the holes that are supposed to be left open for the wing root.

DON'T RIVET THESES HOLES!

A gratuitous shop head picture.

Nice, Nice, Nice, Nice, Nice, Nice, Nice.

After 140 squeezes (I lie, some of them were underdriven, so I squeezed them a little more), I had the whole rear spar (except a few) and the whole inboard edge (except a few).

In case you don't like this picture...

I took this one too.

I don’t know why I took both those pictures. The only two differences…I put the rear spar support back up (for kicks) and didn’t bend down as far for the picture. I think I’m tired.

I’m wrangling up my first riveting partner for some more skin riveting this weekend.

1.0 hour. 140 perfectly squeezed rivets. Boo. Yeah.

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Posted by Andrew

Riveted Some More Right Leading Edge Ribs

May 23, 2011

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Well, after a very relaxing week-long vacation, I got back to work on the airplane.

I had previously prepped and primed three right leading edge ribs, so I figured this was a good time to get them permanently assembled.

Here’s a shot of the leading edge and the three ribs 50% clecoed.

Ready for riveting, sir.

The ammunition.

The rivet gun and bucking bar.

After setting half of them, I removed the clecos.

Not shown, I put rivets in the empty holes here, then shifted the tape over.

Guess who made an appearance when she heard the rivet gun.

IT'S GINGER!!!

I’m pretty sure when Jack heard the rivet gun, he headed underneath the bed.

After the top of the leading edge done for those three ribs, I flipped it over and did the bottom.

After all was said and done, I had 87 rivets set, none needed to be drilled out.

Here are some shop head shots.

Here's the fourth rib...

...fifth rib...

...and sixth (outboardmost) rib.

I just HAD to set it on the skeleton to see how it looked.

It was soooo light without all of those clecos.

Here's the top side...

...and the bottom side.

Then, I started pulling out the blue plastic. I only pulled out the sections where I didn’t need more riveting or where the leading edge landing light is going to go.

Pulling off plastic.

Shiny.

Sometimes, I worry that my careful devinyling lines are a little overboard, but then I see these primer edges, and it makes the extra time worth it.

Nice clean lines.

One hour today, and 87 perfect rivets.

(Honesty alert: I did have two small dings, both on the top surface. I hate it when I forget to start with the bottom, where no one will see any mistakes.)

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Posted by Andrew

Set Eight Rivets

May 13, 2011

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Well, today is Friday the 13th AND the 500th (calendar) day of my build. Coincidence?

Of course, what else would it be?

The first day was 12/29/2009. 500 days ago. Estimating 2000 hours, I’m at 245 hours, 500 days…carry the one…calculator sounds…4081.633 days, or 11 years. Wait, I’m through 1.5 years, so…about 9.5 years to go!

Bummer.

Anyway, the primer dried from last night, so I grabbed some of the blind rivets provided in my leading edge kit (can’t remember the rivet part numbers) and got to pulling.

8 blind rivets.

Here’s how they look after pulling.

Not too bad.

Yikes. Not so pretty, but that's the way they are supposed to be.

Then, I set the other 3 nutplates (8 rivets total) and clecoed the three primed ribs into the leading edge.

It looks like an airplane part.

Next up, riveting!

0.5 hours, 8 rivets. Booyeah.

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Preparation for Left Elevator Skin Riveting

July 21, 2010

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Now that my #10 dies are here, I can proceed with the counterbalance skin and preparation for riveting.

This is how #10 dimples are supposed to look.

No cracks!

After beveling the exterior of the counterbalance skin, drilling the two fairing attach holes (that will be doubled up with the elevator skin) to #28 and dimpling to #6, I threw the counterbalance skin and the little trim riblet up on the priming table, opened the garage door, got the respirator out, and shot these two with primer.

Primed.

After that was done, I clecoed the counterbalance skin in place and riveted the two rivets on each side that can’t be reached after the skeleton is inserted.

There's a nice lap joint there that could have used some edge-rolling, except I FORGOT TO EDGE-ROLL, EVEN THOUGH I JUST BOUGHT AN EDGE-ROLLING TOOL!

The two rivets in question on the top.

Nice shop heads.

And two more on the bottom.

Then, before inserting the skeleton, you loosely place the counterweight in position and partly insert the two screws.

Okay...

Then, I riveted the little riblet I made to the trim spar.

Skeleton, ready to be inserted into the skin.

Closer look.

Of course, I then realized that I needed that area open so I could attempt to buck the four rivets outboard of that point. Drilled out that rivet.

At least I remembered to put some RTV along the back edge of the stiffeners.

After that, I got the skin clecoed on.

It's looking like something that slight resembles an airplane!

Another angle.

I’m kicking myself for not edge-rolling that one lap joint. I only remembered that I didn’t when I woke up in the middle of the night. My two options are to leave it, or drill out 4 rivets and edge roll. Maybe I’ll rivet the rest of the joint (two more rivets), then decide whether it is bad enough if the edge picks up at all. I don’t think it will, but I’ll start there so if I have to take it apart, it will only be a few rivets.

1 hour. 4 rivets, one drilled out.

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Posted by Andrew

Riveted E-703 and E-704 to E-702

July 18, 2010

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Even though I haven’t been feeling all that well in the last few days, I did sneak out in the garage for 30 minutes. I was mostly motivated by the arrival of my replacement E-713. Here she is, in all her beauty. (Let’s not mess this one up, too, Andrew.)

Ah, a non-mangled part for a change.

After admiring E-713 for awhile, I moved on to riveting E-704 and E-703 together. Here are 8 lovely shop heads.

Looks good on this side.

And then I riveted my extra credit one leg nutplate in the tooling hole for further control surface balancing. Because I’ll want to balance the control surfaces pretty well while they are polished, if I ever decide to paint, I’ll have to add weight back in. This will be the best way to do this.

Thinking even further ahead, if I put a screw in here, I'll make it short enough that it falls out before binding. Or, I'll safety wire it. I'll have to think more about that.

And the other side. This was fun to rivet because I had to do both rivets at once.

That was it for today. 14 rivets, one of them had to be drilled out and replaced. Now, I’m just waiting for my latest Avery order so I can finish up the replaced counterbalance skin.

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Posted by Andrew

Prepped and Primed Left Elevator Skin

July 11, 2010

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Well, after an exiting morning with the South Carolina Breakfast Club, I was fraught with motivation. (I don’t know if I am using “fraught” correctly…)

Next thing on my long laundry list of things to do on the left elevator is to prep the skin for riveting to the skeleton. First thing, I got out the soldering iron and pulled off some more of the blue vinyl. While I was at it, I pulled off the blue painter’s tape I had been using to protect the back-riveted stiffener rivet lines.

All that shiny aluminum really makes me happy.

Then, on to deburring. I deburred both exterior sides of the skins, and then moved on to deburring the interior of the skins. I follow very closely with my maroon scotchbrite pad to help me remember where I have deburred (you can easily tell the difference between a deburred hole and one that has yet to be deburred…I am more using the scotchbrite pad as an excuse to give my fingers a rest…it is hard spinning that drill bit over and over and over).

The background holes are #40 (3/32") and the foreground holes are #30 (1/8"). I drilled these holes to #30 now because I don't want to wait until after the skin bending (at which point I won't be able to deburr them). Also, having the holes to final size will help with the annoying pop rivets that go in them.

Next up, dimpling the skin-to-skeleton holes. I scuff the interior of the skins before dimpling, because it is easier to scuff without dimples getting in the way.

I use my masking tape trick on the male dimple die, and I get ZERO circles around the dimples. So nice.

All holes dimpled.

Time to move on to edge-finishing. This little 90° corner is a tough one, but I think this ended up nice.

Edge-finishing.

After edge-finishing, I cleaned up, wiped everything down with MEK, and primed. Fast forward 30 minutes later, and now I get to pull the vinyl out of the skins (I’m trying to remind myself constantly to not forget the RTV in the trailing edge of the elevator bend before riveting.)

I probably add some time to the project by masking all of this stuff off and priming just the contacting surfaces, but I think it looks great (no one will ever see it) and I think I'm saving weight. Maybe not, but I sleep better because I do this.

It looks so good. I love this part of a subassembly, I'm getting close to riveting!

Last, but not least for the day was to prep and prime the two outboard ribs. These fit back to back and support the counterbalance and counterbalance skin.

On the priming table after getting a light coat of self-etching primer.

3.5 hours today on the project, but I’m only logging 3.0 here. See here for the other 30 minutes.

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