Brief Description: Riveting Wing spars with Van's squeezer
Rented Van's squeezer for a week over Christmas break... Since all wing spars are pre-assembled these days (except RV-3?), they were not even sure exactly where it was!... Somewhere in the proto shop. Wish I had a picture of the box it was shipped in... An aluminum box that looks like it had been around the world about a 100 times (probably not much of an exaggeration)... Also looked a bit like some of the 'ground handling equipment' used by the airlines.... Totally beat, but the squeezer worked fine. After a couple trials with 3/16 in rivets in some scrap material, it became apparent that I was going to have to clamp the spar in place to ensure it didn't try to 'twist' while setting the rivets... Don't remember for 100% for sure *why*, but also determined that having the spar vertical (on edge) was going to be best for riveting (I think this is so I could *see* both sides of what was going on & also so I didn't need different shim/support heights as I progressed down the spar??? Also wanted to make sure there was no twist to the spar as the rivets were set.
Close up of squeezer & angle plate used for jigging
