Wow, six weeks with no work on the plane! I've just returned from New Zealand (Warbirds over Wanaka airshow amongst other things), with a side trip to Kuala Lumpur. The latter was extended by four days due to the ash cloud emanating from Iceland.
Boy, it was tough getting started today. I couldn't remember where anything was. I started with an inspection of the plane, and discovered a dent in the lower trailing edge of one of the flaperons. Don't know where that came from. I can also see miscellaneous scratches and scrapes following the trial fit of the wings. I suspect I won't be doing that too often.
To ease back into work, I started by filling some more rivet heads on the fuselage. Not too challenging. Eventually, I summoned up courage to get started with removing some wing panels from the left wing. I had bought a couple of 1/16 inch pin-punches to knock the mandrel out of the pop rivets. I also have a couple of No 31 drills which are just undersize for 1/8 inch rivets. I'm hoping to remove several hundred rivets with minimal damage. It turned out to be quite hard punching out the mandrels. Sadly my wing now has some minor dents around some of the rivet holes, and one or two bigger dents where the punch slipped. All a bit depressing really...
I only found out after removing all rivets that the mandrel punches out quite easily from rivets that have not have their heads filled. If I had to do this again, I would probably attempt to drill out the filler first.
