Brief Description: Dimple skin, rivet spar doublers front and rear
Dimple left HS skin. Countersunk left spars, front and rear. Riveted front spar doubler and brackets to the front spars. Riveted rear spar doubler to the rear spars. Riveted the first flush rivets into the center nose rib.
Let's see... the real story.... Writing the cold factual description above just does not convey the effort contained in the actual work. The dimpling I now have down to a fine art. The platform I made works perfect. The height of the dimple die and the skin is just right. The skin moves easily around to reach each hole and does not scratch the alumunum while manuvering.
Riveting the front spar was straight forward. I shot the first ten rivets, stepped back to admire my work and realized that eight rivets were not perfect. I continued to shoot the rest of the rivets (once again it's that learing curve thing again) and when I was done all were perfect. So I just drilled out the eight and redid them. Drilling the rivets out and starting over is not hard, but it does require a good degree of accuracy to hit the very center of the rivet.
I riveted the rear spar together and did not ruin a single rivet. It just took a while to get the feel of the rivet.
Then I decided to install the nose ribs into the right skin. Hey, I'm already in rivet mode so let's get this out of the way. The center rib is difficult to get to. As you can see my arm is holding the bucking bar inside the skin and the other is outside holding the rivet gun. Hold this, aim that. Chew gum, walk up stairs. Very similar skills required. In the photo I'm still smiling because I actually have'nt started to shoot any rivets. A very short time later the frustration could be seen because no matter how I tried to get on the rivets it just wouldn't work. I shot ten very bad and certainly unacceplable rivets. Time to quit for today. I have learned not to continue if things are not going your way. Take the break and come back later.
I should talk about my wife here. She has been very supportive during this last week and I think
