Earlier in my log, I mentioned my phone call to Vans to discuss using 1/8" rivets instead of 3/32" rivets in the middle nose rib of the VS. They didn't have any problems with it.
So today I went ahead and removed the skin of the VS. I enlarged the holes with a #30 bit and countersunk the skin and rib for 1/8" rivets.
That's when I discovered something. My dimpler apparently wasn't set correctly when I orginally dimpled the skin for 3/32" rivets. The rivets sit "just about flush" but not perfectly flush. I'm positive this is the root of my issues. I'm embarrased to say that I didn't catch it earlier. Now I will be checking the dimples throughout the dimpling process.
Tomorrow I'm going to go ahead and re-dimple the skin for 3/32" rivets. I promise that I will get them to the correct depth. I will install 1/8" rivets in the nose rib and skin; 3/32" in the rest of the skin and skeleton.
I checked the pitch (spacing) of the rivets and they are approximantly 10X rivet diameter, so the pitch is fine. I checked the edge clearance and they edge clearance is fine too. I'm going to double check the clearance on the nose rib one more time, that's the only hole that might be close to the minimum edge clearance.
