Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Back into the wings… « redrv7

I’ve been racking up the frequent flier miles and haven’t been in the shed for a few weeks. This weekend I plan to remedy this and made a start today by sneaking in a couple of hours on the tools.

I dusted off the parts from where I left them and got back to work on riveting the outboard main ribs to the rear spars. I remembered these were being difficult and they continued to be on this occasion. I think it was a mixture of awkward positioning (i.e. lieing on the floor) and awkard location (i.e. trying the get the squeezer into position). Perserverence, several drilled out rivets, and some colourful language later, I managed to get the left wing done. I set 3 of these rivets using my squeezer but had to shoot the last one with my rivet gun as it was out of reach of the yoke. I found the rivet gun to be a bit easier and less prone to bending rivets over or not getting them sitting in the middle of the countersink. I used the rivet gun on the right wing for all 4 rivets and only had to drill out 1 of these (as opposed to about 5 on the left wing).

Apologies for the fuzzy picture but you get the general idea. These 8 rivets (4 per wing) took me 2 hours. Fiddly work but I’m glad they are done. The next rivets to be done are the main rib to forward spar. I am hoping these will be easier and faster. we’ll see how we go tomorrow!

Husband and father of 2. Control & Instrumentation Engineer. Flying nut. Gadget geek.

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