Riveted the ribs onto the front spar. Not an easy task on the ribs that are at an angle to the spar.
Then cleco'd the skin onto the skeleton, in preparation for riveting, tomorrow.
Note: - I scratch built a Sonex. It is made almost entirely of stainless steel pulled ("pop") rivets.
- Bucked rivets seem absolutely Neanderthal! They are difficult to work with, easy to screw up, and difficult to drill out. They are also difficult to set when you need to keep 2 pieces of metal together. Unless you can clamp the pieces (most of the times you can't due to clearances), it's really easy to have the two surfaces move slightly apart while trying to buck the rivet. They you get to drill it out and try again.
- "Pop" rivets are set by pressing the rivet gun against the material to be joined, automatically pushing the two materials together. It's nearly foolproof, and you hardly EVER have to drill out rivets. And they are all available as flush rivets. So why are we still bucking rivets?
- I'm guessing it will take me maybe 3 evenings to rivet the RV-7 skin. Lord only knows how many I'll have to drill out and do over. With pulled rivets I could have the whole thing done in about an hour.
