Today was a very productive day ! Much better then expected after the slow rivetting last week. I had a week in Bremen for work so no progress during the last week.
We left off last week with the HS707 rivetted on the top and partly on the bottom side.
Before I started, drilled out 3 more rivets from last week where I found the round head damaged and one 426 in the center front spar where the shop head was poor. Drilled out without enlarging and replaced with some much nicer ones.
Then my buddy-builder and neighbour Jacques came by to help. I am afraid his wife is also close to being another "aircraft builder widow".
We first rivetted the HS707 completly to the skin, the little bump in the skin from last week is completly removed. I guess it was caused by he stress between rivetted and non rivetted.
You cleco all ribs in without the spar, the HS706 at the bottom and the HS708 behind the HS707 and attach both. This allows perfect allignment of the 707. Below is the finished hand bucked HS707.
The you remove the HS708 again and cleclo the hole front spar in and add the HS708 again.
Next step is the 3 pop rivets which go in the center of the front spar that attaches the ribs. It is not possible to reach behind the bar anymore as 404 and 405 are already rivetted on the front spar.
Some people do not rivet the 404 because of the freaky thought that pop rivets are not as strong as set rivets. That is true and I won't deny that, but a Sonex for example is almost completly build out of pop rivets and I haven't heared of one falling out of the sky yet. So I decided to follow the plans and go with the 3 pop rivets here.
As you can see, the area to pull the rivets is quiet tight and I had to grind off a part of the head of my pop rivet tool (as many other builders have done before). It really helped. I have tree nice and flush pop rivets set near to a spar.
Then, you connect the 706 side rib to the front spar using 4/32" rivets.
I learned a little trick this week from a mail from Vans. You should put a piece of 'mylar' tape on the front of the universal head rivet set on the gun. This protects the rivet head and you get way less smilies in the material.
After that, all center rivets are set from center to sides and back. This is where being 2 persons doing the job really pays off.
We switched positions in the beginning and found out that I am a better 'bucker' and Jacques is the better 'shooter'. The more you practice, the faster it goes. Below is a row of set AN426-3-3.5's
To do this job, you have to get in impossible positions. Jacques demonstrates here how that works.
After finishing off the left stabilisor, we continued working on the right side
Same story with the HS707. This went much smoother now.
The pop rivets on the right side
After rivetting also this side, you place in the rear spar and cleco it on.
And when all is finally rivetted, the result is what you see below. From here on, the hand squeezer will be used for the side rivets. But that's work for tomorrow.
