Today ended up being a really long day, 8 hours. Now this makes for some progress. I began riveting along the front spar and the 708 rib on the left side of the HS. It took a few rivets to get my technique back. I was getting a lot of rivets that were not seating into the dimple very well. At first I thought the issue was with my dimples but I then realized that I might be pushing too hard with the bucking bar, sure enough that was my problem. I ended up drilling out 3 rivets and resetting them, thankfully I did not enlarge any holes while drilling out the rivets.
I am slow but after my initial hick ups my rivets came out nicely. After I was done I did an inspection of each rivet and found one that was clenched over, so I drilled it out and replaced it and there where 3 other rivets that required a few more hits to get the proper shop head.
Even with tape on my bucking bar I found I was marring up the spar while bucking, I then thought of using some thick vinyl I had laying around from a laminate flooring project (it is the pad you put under the floor to make it quiet). I cut a strip and fit it in the channel of the spar, with this I could move the bar around without having to worry about marking up the spar (see photo 1). Because I did mar it up some with my initial rivets, after I was done with all of the interior rivets I touched up the spar with some rattle can primer. The rear spar is now clecoed in place. Tomorrow I will set all of the perimeter rivets, which should go fast because I can use the squeezer to set most of these rivets. Then the HS will be complete. Just a rudder and elevator and the tail feathers will be done!
