February 8, 2007



Today I got to try out the replacement hydraulic riveter.  The first riveter I bought had oil all over the inside of the box - not so with this one.  Even the included bottle of oil is a different color (this one is blue, the last was dirty brown).  This thing is cheating!!  



Here's the first rivet pulled with the air riveter.  As I said above, this thing is cheating.  A slight pull of the trigger with the air set to 50psi and it pulls smoothly and breaks.



Same rivet from the other side.



I wasn't going to show what air compressor I was using until I was sure it was going to work.  I wanted to buy a belt driven standing tank compressor - but living in town house I needed something quiet and small.  This little husky compressor works great and its amazingly quiet - my shop vac is louder.



Two of the holes don't get rivets - the ribs attach here later.  I put clecos in from the side the rivets go in from so I don't put rivets in them.



Same shot from the other side of the spar - the circled holes are where the clecos are poking through from the other side.



Placing the rivets in the holes - note the rivet in the center of the clip on the end.  It is a ccp-44 like the rest of the ones I've put in - its going to be too short.  Unfortunately I didn't realize this until later.



The riveter fits great on the lower row of rivets.  I thought for a while about how to pull the upper row - a wedge or something.  In the end I decided to just bend the flange out of the way with the nose of the riveter.  Works fine, and leaves just a bit of distortion on the flange that is easily straightened out.



Remember the too short rivet mentioned earlier?  This is what it looked like from the other side - at this point I looked at the drawings and realized my mistake.  Time to try drilling out rivets.



All of the rivets set that are supposed to be set - except the angle clip.



Here's the rivet that is to be used where the clip is.  A CCP-46 rivet is on the left, CCP-44 on the right.  



The completed front spar (except the front nose rib clips).



A closer shot - the two rivets for the rib are still not installed - the cleco idea worked.



Here's the other side.  Note the rivet that needed to be drilled out has been succesfully.



Here's what making all of these parts has been leading up to.



I was looking for a place to hang in to take a picture when Katie showed up.  I'm thinking perhaps I should have found something to hang it up on.  Anyway - here's what the horizontal stablizer looks like without the rear spar (and rivets).



My fuzzy little helper - he's inspecting my progress.



Every time Katie gets the camera I get cat pictures.  Last one - I'll spare you from the rest.




< Last Home Next >