Brief Description: Trimming Elevator Stiffeners, Finishing HS
I spent an hour this morning trimming the elevator stiffeners. In the afternoon I called my neighbor Pat (who built/owns an RV7) and asked if he would come by and take a look at my horizontal stabilizer. I had some rivets in the HS-707 nose ribs that were less than pretty and unfortunately I had closed them in before I noticed them when I riveted the HS-404 nose ribs. My dilemna was whether to leave them be or drill out the HS-404 ribs, screw them up, and have to start over on the HS. On the chance that I would need to order new parts, I had not riveted the rear spar assembly to the HS. I figured I would at least salvage those parts (and time) if I needed a "Mulligan" on the rest of it. Many of the other rivets in the HS were also slightly rounded upward and not flush in the dimple and for the life of me I could not figure out why. I had shot those rivets with a swivel flush set with the rubber ring. I used blue painters tape on the face of the set to further protect the skin. Pat took the tape off of the set and we gave one of the slightly rounded rivets a few taps. It worked so well we tapped all of the remaining rivets with Pat bucking. Not sure why the tape would cause the rivets to sit high but apparently it did. Pat also suggested that I remove the HS-404 ribs and tap the rivets in the HS-707 ribs. It's a good thing that I did because I discovered that one of the blind rivets in the rear flange of HS-707 was not pulled correctly. While correcting the high rivet issue, the ribs drilled out well but when reinstalling the HS-404 ribs I could not squeeze the AN470 rivets as the skin was now in the way. I used a double offset rivet set and my wife got to buck her first rivets. I am not sure which of us was the least enthusiastic about the situation. We both exceeded my expectations and I think it turned out ok.
