Started the day by attending the monthly member meeting of Chapter 302 at KCXO. I am still a member of Chapter 77 back in Michigan but since I don't belong to a local chapter I joined after the meeting. Went over to Dennis McCright's hangar where he helped me roll the edges of my nose skin with his Cleveland edge forming tool to ensure edges would sit flat when riveted. I managed to let the tool stray in a couple of places causing the material to stretch in those locations. Dry ice was recommended to help bring material back it's original shape but this did not seem to help appreciably.
Was concerned that tip rib material might deform and/or crack when pulling rivets into it so I created a couple of 18mm wide reinforcement strips from 0.020" which were match drilled to the rib then held in place with weatherstrip adhesive.
I had pulled all of the rivets in the tip rib except for one on the trailing edge end when I discovered back of the rivet was hitting the rivet on the opposite side that had already been pulled. Tried to push down with rivet puller in an attempt deflect opposite side enough to seat the head when I inadvertantly pulled the trigger resulting in an unseated head. Drilled head off this rivet but could not punch it out so had to drill them all out, remove the rib, punch out the rivets then reinstall.
Lesson: Drilling out rivets with 1/8" drill is fast and easy. Do not be intimidated by this.
Tip: When riveting the tip rib start at the rear. After pulling rivet on one side insert strip of metal or wood from the opening in the front to spread rear of rib enough to prevent rivets from interfereing.
Rest of riveting was straight forward with very nice results except for the minor puckering in about four places along the nose skin edges. You have to look pretty close to see the aesthetic impact so I'm not going to fret over this imperfection.
