Brief Description: Riveted VS ribs to the front spar with difficulty.
I thought the ribs would be easy to rivet to the front VS spar, but found the pneumatic squeezer would not reach to squarely squeeze the rivets. After drilling out a couple of failed attempts, I called Shawn at Isham Tools (the company where I purchased most of my tools) to ask about techniques that he might have that would help. He suggested that lowering the pressure on the squeezer to set the rivet before attempting the final squeeze might give me more control. He then said for me to practice riveting with the gun while bucking for myself. He said that I would start to get a good feel for the process. I tried it and it worked great. Using the offset 1/8" tool on the rivet gun allowed me to get to those tough spots. I decided that I needed a manual squeezer and ordered the Main Squeeze with a longeron yoke, a 1/4" torque wrench, Quick Change drill adapters, flair tool, and tube benders all from Cleaveland Aircraft tool. I shouldn't talk to these tool sales people!
Used rivet gun and self bucked the VS 704 nose rib and VS 705 rib to the front spar. Riveted the VS 707 rib to the front spar. Squeezed the VS 706 top rib to the front spar.
Tried using the pneumatic squeezer with bad results.
