Continued back-riveting the stiffeners to the one side of the rudder skin. Carol-Anne (my luscious wife) helped me for two of the stiffeners but unfortunately had other things to do.
I tried to continue by myself but the results were less than stellar as I had to press down the stiffener and hold the back-riveting set still with one hand, hold the rivet gun in the other and push the skin open with my head. Then I started trying to find other methods
I first tried placing a large (bit longer than the rudder) heavy plank ontop of a 22mmx22mm piece of wood which in turn rested on the stiffener I was about to rivet and then clamped it down. It did help by keeping the stiffener firmly depressed and the skin in place but it was very tedious as you had to move the whole contraption and re-clamp after every rivet.
I went through numerous variations and finally found a quick, easy and simple way (KISS really works for me!). A piece of wood (22mmx22mm - a standard size locally) just long enough to fit snuggly lengthwise between two stiffeners. I position the wood behing the rivet I'm about to shoot and butt it up against the rivet behind that. Placing my left palm on the wood, I now naturally push the stiffener down onto the skin and with my left thumb I can easly clamp the backriveting set to the wood. This then keeps it dead still and vertical at the same time. The result was I shot all the rivets on the R-815A stiffener (the longest one) in about three minutes and they were all nigh on perfect!
The next side of the skin should be breeze compared to everything I went through on this side... maybe backriveting ain't so bad after all... time will tell! ;)
The better half helping out
removing the masking tape off the back of the rivets I've just shot
Simple... but dang it made things a *LOT* easier and quicker for me!
