Brief Description: Checking rivets and making adjustments
It was brought to my attention that some of my rivets did not look completely set, so I decided to do what I planned to do after both spars were complete (and will again anyway), which was check all my rivets. I made a gauge to check the AN5 rivets. It has a 15/64 shop head gauge and a 5/64 thickness gauge. It worked very well. I detected about 7 that were not set enough, and about 10 that were borderline so I hit them too. All the rivets on the spar now meet the head dimension. I will check thickness in a future session. I did check some of them for thickness but not the whole spar methodically. I also drilled out about 9 rivets that I did not like. I have a great system for getting these rivets out and makes no damage to the spar. I center punch the factory head then do a shallow drill. I then use a sharp chisel and tap it sideways along the spar (like I was scraping the head off) and the head usually pops off with very little force. I then use the chisel to make sure the excess material is off and I use an old nail set that has the tip broken off to drive out the shank. It just so happens that the nail set is about the same thickness as the rivet shank so it is perfect. Works like a charm!
