-Built up some “close pins” out of ¾” plywood to hold the skin on the horizontal stab. Probably made them a little too big. I traced the outlines of the middle ribs and then cut with a jig saw with about a 3/8” margin all the way around. Worked good for compressing the skin when not much is clecoed together. They are a little big once everything is tied together. A little padding with rags helps. -Clecoed on HS 707 on the left side, and started riveting with my 3x gun on the top side. -Got all but the most aft flush rivet in and then screwed it up bad. I took my eye off the rivet gun and bounced it bad. The rivet head was bad and I dented the skin to boot. -To top it off, I did a poor job of drilling out the rivet. I didn’t center the drill on the rivet very well and ended making a mess of it. I couldn’t salvage the hole properly with the rest of the rib on the skin so I drilled out all the good rivets as well to get it off. I was a bit spooked at this point. -To drill out the good rivets, I used a 1/16” bit instead of the #40. That seemed to work better for getting the drill centered. I then followed up with the #40, and extracted the rivet per the standard procedure. -The most aft hole was pretty bad. I ended up drilling it out to #30 and then, pounding out the rivet gun dent with a mallet and block of wood. I then redimpled it with the 1/8” die. I then put in AN426AD4-4 in the new reworked hole. -Re-did the remaining 3/32” flush rivets -Clecoed in the HS706 & 708. -Riveted the other (aft) side of the HS707. Managed to get that last one with a flush rivet. Plans say you can use a pop rivet. -Not happy about my rivet gun technique. -Did some research on Van’s airforce. Found this: http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=62199&highlight=rivet+gun+technique&page=2. -90 pounds is way too much with a 3x gun. For AN4 rivets, I use 63 for the average rivet, and perhaps a SLIGHTLY larger amount for a longer rivet. For your typical AN3-X rivet, I use about 38 psi.
