I spent the day trying my best not to damage anything while riveting the nose ribs. The ends are easy, since I can get to those with the squeezer. The middle nose ribs are the challenging ones. I found and watched a video on bucking the nose rivets and saw where this builder had turned the cradles over on it side and secured it to the bench. This way you can reach in with one hand and man the rivet gun with the other. It seemed to work best when I stuck some towels under the bottom skin (between the table and the skin) and bucked the rivets on the top, holding the bucking bar on the inside. I was able to get to all the rivets with my tungsten bar, except for the ones closest to the nose…my hand was too big to fit in there and hold the bar. So, Cyndi was able to help me out with those rivets and all went well…except. I must have mislabeled the nose ribs or just plain put them in the wrong spots, because I noticed after everything was together the two nose ribs, with the bent flange and the 5 holes that go in the center positions are somewhere else. Now I need to figure out how to remedy the situation…never a dull moment when building a plane…. grrrrr. Lesson learned, don’t just go by your own lables, double check that the parts are in the right spot.
