Okay, today was the 'big' day of driving rivets in the RV7 HS. Again as a new builder, I was both excited and a little nervous. Need to get over the hump.
Laid out the Rear Spar per plans, cleco'ed it all together. Doubled and tripled checked rivet size/type and placement. All looked in order and squeezed my first rivet into the rear spare. No harp music or fireworks – just the realization that this is the first of thousands.
Finished up on the rivets on the rear spare and started to bolt the Hinge Bearing and over-torqued the bolt. So, now I need to order some replacement AN3-5A’s tomorrow. This will hold up the progress on the HS skin until this is done. I did cleco the front spare and may rivet it tomorrow.
Upon inspection of the Rear Spare – one rivet had a nice smiley face on the head. I decided to drill it out and replace. First it was marginal on replacement, but I thought it would be good practice on the real deal, controlled and easy to get to. Drill out and replacement went perfect.
