11/16/2003
5 hours:More team riveting today as we re-tackled the awful HS nose rib which was our first (failed) riveting attempt over a month ago. I left this until we gained more experience riveting on the VS and it certainly made a difference. There were no slipping bucking bars or rivet guns sliding around on the skin. We got one of the frontmost rivets driven the first try, then the rest of that side was a breeze. When it came to the other side, our first attempt failed and when I drilled out the rivet the little tab got all bent inward. Since it is literally impossible to hold that tab down AND buck at the same time, I decided to throw in the towel here and use a pop rivet. Pop rivets are really the way to go in tight spots especially when you need to pull materials together. I used a MK319BS rivet which did a great job.
After that I riveted the two end nose ribs...I used the gun on one entire side until I realized I could use the squeezer. Interestingly enough, the bucked rivets turned out nicer. It's hard to get that squeezer lined up when the skin is bending like this, and I think the gun may round out the flush head a little bit.
Here's an outside shot of the pop rivet. The hole in the center will be filled in before painting.
One more shot, interesting because you can see the tiny scratches in the aluminum from me checking the flushness with my finger.
Later on I spent some quality time with the bench grinder and smoothed out about half of those elevator stiffeners. It took forever and I still have a lot more to do! After I quit my entire upper body was covered in a thin layer of aluminum dust.