Today was an exciting day. Not only did I get the sprinklers for our house fixed (honey-do list item), but I also began riveting the tailcone together. I decided to depart slightly from Vans instructions here, as many others have done before me. In order to get perfectly driven rivets, you can load the whole assembly up on your benchtop and use the back-riveting technique. This involves careful planning to make sure the back-rivet plate is underneath the rivet being driven at all times. It only takes one "miss" to ding up your skin pretty badly. Then again, I didn't figure the risk was any worse than that of dropping a bucking bar inside while riveting according to Vans instructions. I'm glad I chose to back-rivet, because the rivets came out perfectly.
