Brief Description: Attaching HS404/405 nose and main rib to front spa
I could not figure out how to get the Cleaveland Main Squeeze square on these rivets. Finally went out on VAF forums and requested help. The solution was simple, an offset rivet set and shoot the rivets. I really wanted to squeeze these but the square body of the Main Squeeze was not going to permit this. I ordered both single and double offsets as well as some snap loc's from Avery. The double offset worked best for me and allowed me to get the gun away from the rib and square on the rivet head. I also have a tungsten bucking bar now, it helped as well. I did wind up drilling out one rivet. It started to bend over and we saved it for last to drill out. Rest of the rivets went fine.
Back to the bent over rivet. Due to lessons learned in the past, I used a real small drill bit, a 1/16th and made sure that I was drilling only rivet material. We finally got it out by increasing drill size to a #40 and eventually worked it out with vice grips, pliers and a punch. The hole still looked clean and we tried 3 more rivets, each started to bend over. Since I used just a light hit with the gun to slowly set the rivet it was easy to spot the rivet going over and we stopped. The rivet pulled right out. It looks like the hole might have be very slightly oblong and instead of the rivet sitting snug and expanding it just folded over without the support on the sides. Just like using a rivet that was too long.
I redrilled this to the next size up and moved from a -4 to -5 rivet and it set just fine. These are the two inner rivets on right in picture 3. They do not pass through the angle splices and will be just fine. By the way, the lower one was already drilled up to a -5 from an earlier mistake. It does not take much to get off on an angle. I figured out why I had trouble staying square on the piece. These rivets go in at the bend and it is difficult to ignore the piece going out at an angle and stay focused and square on the one half only. The other side was fine as I had figured my problem out by then.
