After drilling the holes for the 1/8 inch rivets in the side skin it was time to dimple the skin to accommodate the larger rivets. The pop rivet dimple dies are a real help for getting into places to dimple holes where no other means would work. The dies have a hole down the center that allow you to place a nail ( 8d finish nail or common nail) through the hole in the center of the die. Then you feed it through the drilled hole with the male side of the dimple facing in the direction you want and then place the other side on the nail. Next you insert the pop rivet gun and squeeze till the dies are fully seated....presto...a nicely dimpled hole! I prefer to use a common nail through the center because the finish nail heads are not consistant and can pull into the hole and have to tap it out....common nails have the big head that prevent that from happening and in my opinion spreads out the pressure over the die more effectively.
I removed the quadrant and parts. I then marked where I wanted to remove excess material to lighten the bracket since there was no need for having the material since the bracket is plenty stout. This is where having a mill machine is nice....but is not necessary.
Finally in this session I removed material from the armrest that I chose to leave in the airplane for the left console. After getting the nutplates installed I was able to mark the area that could be removed and used my dremmel tool to do it.
