Today was spent riveting the doubler plates, nutplates and rudder horn to the front spar. I was able to use my squeezer for most of the rivets. When I got to the rudder horn area it was better to use the gun and bucking bar. I haven't done any solo riveting since my EAA sheet metal workshop early last year, so I proceeded with caution.
I've observed that the larger the rivet, the easier it is to drive. At work I had the opportunity to shoot and buck some 3/16 in. rivets and it seemed much easier to do than the 3/32 in. Fortunately these were 1/8 in. protruding head rivets so it wasn't that difficult to do solo. Having the work clamped in a vise to steady it made it that much easier.
That said, I still managed to pretty badly smash up one head. Back on the VS I put a smiley on a rivet head and I ended up making it much worse trying to replace the rivet. I ended up buying new parts. I'll seek some guidance on whether I should remove it or leave it alone.
There's a little gotcha in the plans where you rivet the two upper doublers (R-607PP and R608PP) to the front spar. The plans call for AN470AD4-5 rivets. However, four of the rivets go thru the K1000-6 nutplates required a 4-6 rivet. the 4-6 rivets are called out on the middle doubler but not the upper doubler. The correct callout should be AN470AD4-5 (8 PL) and AN470AD4-6 for the nutplates (4 PL).
Most of the rivets were squeezed. A few were easier to buck. The vise makes the job easier.
The top center rivet head was pretty smashed up. Replace or leave it alone? I'll ask an expert.
The trailing edge wedge will be countersunk along the edge
