What is so exciting but also so frustrating about building your own plane is that for me at least every step is a new experience, a new challenge, a learning environment that will probably not be repeated. Almost every step I take or tool I use is a battle and I have come to the realization that I probably won't need that particular piece of knowledge or acquired skill again as another challenge looms. Oh boy would it be nice to build another SeaRey, or a whole assembly line of them, so that I could put the things that I have learned to use and do something quickly and efficiently for once. Case in point... the pneumatic riveter! Drove down to the big city on a day off work and purchased a 4 gallon 90 psi @ 2 cfm direct drive air compressor and a 3/16" air riveter from Princess Autoparts. The instructions for the compressor were pretty clear and I got that running fairly quickly (sorry neighbours it is a noisy little bugger but so is your kid who pounds the floor above). The instructions for the riveter were not so clear, the parts diagram was missing key component numbers and the less than common sense description of 'top' and 'bottom' in regards to 'filling' the air cylinder with air tool oil left me befuddled... and my living carpet soiled with oil. I won't go into anymore detail here because it is too embarrassing, but suffice to say that I managed to pull my first 3/16" stainless steel rivet just fine except for all the oil ejected over the coffee table. During my time out, I googled this issue and found lots of people who had made the same mistake with various other makes of air riveters, but also found no clear explanation of what you are supposed to do. So I will continue this tradition and stop here to leave you equally in the dark, as I still am.
