January 14, 2004

Okay, I've been thinking long and hard about how I want to rivet this stuff. My back is giving me fits squeezing the -4's (you can see the one's I squeezed at the top of the picture, not under the rivet tape).  I then decided that this was a perfect opportunity to practice my back-riveting!  Sooo, rugrat #2 (my daughter) and I got out the tape and slapped the rivets in place.

Voila!  One side is done.  I absolutely love back-riveting...not a bad one in the lot, easy on the back, and it involves power tools!  *grin*

Decided to clamp the spar in the vise because I've blown more rivets having the darn thing wiggle while trying to squeeze than for any other reason.  At this point, all the 426's except for the one's on the hinge that the back-rivet set can't get to, are done.  I'm setting up here to do the 470's.  Squeezed out a couple before my body said "enough, wait for the new squeezer!".  Should'a taken pictures, but I forgot.  Sorry.

The jaws on the vise are taped to reduce marring, and I'm using wooden spacers to make sure the spar flange doesn't get caught in the pipe-holder portion of the vise.

Okay, if you remember, there's an issue where the upper & middle VS ribs don't fit correctly into the leading edge of the skin.  Van's said to either hammer the web a bit, or sand it off.  I know several people have opted for the hammering approach, and on the older planes, that would be best.  I went for sanding because with the flange hole being match drilled to the skin, if I start changing the size/shape of the flange, that hole isn't going to fit any more.  A little sanding, then clean up with a flat file on the edges and corners, and I'm there!  Maybe I'll remember to take a picture of the new fit tomorrow.