The adventure begins! It is with mixed emotions that I started drilling out beautifullly polished rivets in the nose skin of my left wing. I am so glad that we have Chris Heintz designs for structural modifications to the wings, ailerons and center spar. The measure of safety (and confidence in my aircraft) that this will bring is worth the long, hard work of deconstructing major portions of my airplane. At least I didn't have to drain fuel tanks and remove my wings from a fully functional airplane. That would really hurt. My expectation is that the modifications will take me no less than 100 hours, and could require double that. Fast forward a couple of months and we'll all know. DE-RIVETING ADVICE: Remove the head of the A4 rivets and just enough material to allow the body to push through the top layer only. Once you have removed the skin, you can then remove the formed end of the rivet with diagonal pliers.
