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Gary's RV8 Construction Log
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Date:  3-2-2008
Number of Hours:  1.00
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  R-Elev: Backriveting Stiffeners

Completed back riveting the stiffeners to the right elevator skin. I followed the same basic procedure as I had with the rudder skin previously by doing a "wet-layup" of the stiffener to the skin and removing any excess paint after the completion of each stiffener.

In my opinion, this back riveting thing as a fickle friend... a few rivets go perfectly and you start gaining some confidence in your abilities, just to make a complete mess of the next 2 or three, necessitating their later removal and replacement. What I did find/discover though (only towards the end of the right elevator skin though) is that I was concentrating so much on keeping the rivet gun perpendicular to the work surface that I did not necessarily have the back rivet assembly dead center on the rivet. I found I was more likely to shoot a shoddy rivet when the assembly not center on the rivet (not easy to see as the plastic housing obscures the exact position) than when it was not perfectly perpendicular. When I started concentrating more on centering the rivet gun over the rivet, I started producing better rivets more consistently. It would thus seem that the closer you are to center, the less effect a small error in vertical alignment of the rivet gun may have. The more off center you are however, the more an error in vertical alignment appears to be exaggerated. Right or wrong, that’s my experience at the moment. I’m still uncomfortable with back riveting and need to find a “happy medium” or “get the feel” for it. I do feel that I’m much closer to it now though but time (or rather the left elevator skin) will tell.

I then identified all the rivets that were unacceptable and marked them for removal by making a small cross on the flush side. I’ll only remove them once I’ve completed back riveting the stiffeners for the left skin too. That means I should (theoretically) be much more comfortable back riveting as I’ll have 33% more experience than I currently have and as a result, far less likely to stuff up a replacement rivet too
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Backriveting the stiffeners to the skin

Backriveting the stiffeners to the skin

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Backrivetting of the Right Elevator stiffeners complete

Backrivetting of the Right Elevator stiffeners complete

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Offending (unacceptable) rivets marked for later removal and replacing

Offending (unacceptable) rivets marked for later removal and replacing

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