Brief Description: back-rivet the aileron stiffeners
I woke up before church and family Christmas to get some riveting done. It's the fun kind of riveting, #2 on the easy/high quality results type riveting...it's back-riveting day. Back-riveting is done by putting the rivets in the skin and taping them in the holes, along the rivet row. Next the skin is turned over and laid on top of a flat steel plate, and the stiffener is placed on top of the row of rivets. You now rivet the shop head using the rivet gun and a back rivet set, and since the manufactured head is in contact with the steel plate, it serves the purpose of the bucking bar. I say back riveting is the second easiest riveting to do, behind the pneumatic squeezer because you can still over-drive or under-drive the rivet, or mess things up if the rivet gun is not held perpendicular. Whereas the squeezer ranks #1 easiet method because once you dial in the squeezer gap setting you get 100% consistent rivets every time. Back-riveting is done when you have open access on the opposite side of the finished skin - because the back-rivet method gives a nice flush finshed rivet/skin surface - so the ailerons are prime candidates for back-riveting.
So there you go, in a little over an hour, I had 224 high quality rivets driven! A good day in the shop for sure :)
