Time: 4 Hours
I got a fair amount if work done this last weekend of the HS. I started by touching up the primer on the aft spar where my riveting scratched it. Then off to work on the forward spar. I was able to use the pneumatic squeezer for a few of the rivets but the rest needed the rivet gun and bucking bars. Whoa I haven’t used those tools yet except for a class at EAA’s OshKosh AirVenture. So off to practice I went, I will say all went pretty well. The first few were slow but worked well.
As I have read on many builders websites that you will get some “smileys” on your AN470 rivets. A smiley occurs when the concave rivet head of your rivet gun jumps off the rivet head and moves. This movement allows the rivet gun shank to hit the rivet head off center leaving a small mark resembling a smile.
Here is a view of that concave surface
Most builders will also tell you to resist the urge to drill out a rivet just because it has a smiley. Well I just couldn’t resist on one, maybe just because it looks a little deep for my liking. This was a rivet that tied HS-405, the forward HS spar and HS-404 together. It is a tight spot to rivet or drill out. The drilling went ok until the end where the hole edge on HS-404 got enlarged a little. Once that happens, trying to get a clean shop head on a rivet is tough under easy riveting conditions, which this area was not. Long story short, I tried 2 more times with 2 more drill outs. I then called for some advice from my fellow builder Glen V. He said bring the parts over and let’s take a look. He looked and smiled a little at my rookie mistake and assured me its one of many I will make. We then drilled out the rivet, again and enlarged the hole and riveted with the next size up. You can see the larger rivet in this photo.
After I got that learning curve finished I headed back to the shop and finished priming the inside of the skins for the next building session.
