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March 27, 2004
Notice the different rivets? Told you I'd replaced the blind one's!
I decided it was finally time to tackle riveting the trailing edge. This was the part that made me the most nervous since it had the most room for error. Mike Howe was the first one that pointed out using the angle iron technique (at least, that I saw), and it looked cleaner than using the sealant, so I went with it.
Hard to tell, but between every other cleco is a rivet sticking up.
I was so busy worrying about getting the edge straight, that I didn't take pictures during the process. Sorry. The perspective here (viewfinder is off from the lens, which threw off the shot) makes it look like the edge hooks to the right, but it doesn't. It's straight! No hooks or waves. NOT that I didn't have to drill out some rivets, and work out the technique, but once I had it figured out, it came out pretty good.
A closeup shot of a couple of rivets. Since every other rivet faces the other direction, 2 rivets side-by-side look different. The one on the left is the shop head, the one on the right, the factory. Both are smooth like a cold beer on a hot summer day.
After the trailing edge, I went back and did the R-1002 spar flange & skin riveting. I was able to squeeze most of the upper 2/3's, but the very top-most holes and the bottom third required shooting. I just didn't have enough jaw depth to be able to squeeze them .
I took this the next morning actually, but you can see what the nice days here are like. No big boats yet, since the public ramp doesn't open for a couple of weeks, but in the summer there'd be water-skiers already cutting it up.
