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Roadster's Web Site
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Date: 9-26-2006
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Number of Hours: 7.00
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Manual Reference: 6-5, 6-6
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Brief Description: Assemble & Rivet Skin
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Today Gordon Broich came over and helped me install the skin. I took a little extra care during the initial assembly to minimize scratching the inside of the freshly primed skin. Two pieces of large poster board were used as a buffer between the skin and skeleton while sliding the parts in place. Ater the leading rivet holes on the nose ribs were aligned and clecoed together (the most difficult to fit without scratching the parts), we pulled the paper back to the rear of the assembly about an inch on both sides of the skin to expose the second rivet in each row. We continued this process (pull back paper, align holes, install Cleco) until the skin was firmly attached to the skeleton and the rivet holes were aligning fairly easily without having to use a punch. Then we pulled the construction paper all the way out and clecoed the rest of the assembly. After the skin and skeleton were assembled, we began riveting. I manned the 2x rivet gun, and Gordon bucked the rivets (the most difficult task of the two). In less than 3 hours, the vertical and horizontal inside rows that could not be accessed by the pneumatic squeezer were complete. We bucked over 110 rivets today and only had to drill out and replace 3. Only one of those required an oversize rivet (NAS1097AD4-3.5). Needless to say, Gordon did an excellent job with the bucking bar, and his prior experience building his own RV-10 empennage proved invaluable. (Thanks, Gordon!) After Gordon left, I spent the rest of the afternoon riveting the outside edges on the top, rear, and bottom of the vertical stabilizer. The edges were completed with the pneumatic squeezer (the most useful tool in my entire aircraft toolkit).
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Me Riveting the Top Row (for the FAA)
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Me Riveting the Bottom Row (for the FAA)
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