I did it. January 1st 2017 is the day I formed my first rivets!
I spent some time this afternoon assembling the front and rear spars, forming those rivets that could be reached with my hand squeezer. Although it requires quite a bit more effort than I was epxecting the results are very good, with some very neat shop heads as a result. Just a few were slightly under-formed when checked with my rivet gauge, however using a vernier I verified that they were still within the acceptable range of 1.25 - 1.50 times the rivet shaft diameter.
Tomorrow I'll spend some time practicing with the pneumatic rivet gun before having a go at the rest of the spar rivets. I'm not expecting that to be as easy to use as the hand squeezer.
The first rivet!
Front spar, half done
All shop heads fit neatly in the appropiate rivet gauge
