10/18/2003
10 hours:Today was productive and destructive all in one. Emily and I started by trying to rivet the center HS nose rib. This is a real hard reach with any bucking bar -- I was using a squeezer yoke which barely fits, held on the tips of my fingers. We had it most of the way driven when I changed my grip on the bar to try to change the head angle a little bit...and then my grip on the bar slipped. The rivet was chopped off and the rib damaged.
Thankfully, I was able to drill out the rivet without enlarging the hole, and the rib was saved with some sanding and some touch-up primer. After that I was on my own to try to make progress on the HS spars. I had the squeezer going pretty well and did most of the short rivets on the front spar. I noticed that the rivets were barely measuring up to both aspects of the rivet gauge so I took some time out to read the mil-spec (find it on Dan's site) to see that the rivet gauges from Avery leave a lot of room for interpretation, and that it's better to have a head that fits in the circle than one that slides over the height gauge. All of my rivets save one were just fine by the mil-spec. Then I moved on to the attach angles, which are finally seeing some action since I started working on them on the very first day of building. I squeezed a few rivets in and then noticed the 3" yoke was going to be a little inconvenient for a few rivets. I figured this would be a good time to try out my new wide-mouth longeron yoke, so I swapped it in and started to adjust it by cycling the squeezer near the material to be riveted. I had it set too close, and it slipped and hit the rivet! And on the top side, the die had squeezed an impression into my precious attach angle! Disaster. It may not look too bad in this photo but it is pretty deep. I will have to drill it out, send away for some new stock from Van's, cut it down, transfer the drill holes precisely, refinish, reprime, rerivet. I am now a member of the build-it-again-club!
No complaints on the rest of the rivets...looks pretty cool to get all those clecos off of there.
I was totally disgusted with the HS by now, and put the spar away. I forged ahead with the vertical stabilizer (VS), and in a matter of a few hours had the skeleton assembled, drilled, skin assembled and drilled. Tip: I understand that it is common practice for RV-7 builders to skip ahead in the directions and start on the VS because it is so much easier than the HS. I think that would be good advice for RV-9 builders too. This was far, far easier than the HS especially with all the minor drilling errors and extremely tight fitting parts in the kit. The VS was a walk in the park by comparison.
