12/4/2003
4 hours: Time to try conventional riveting on that elevator spar again...with a lot of bracing it went better this time. Riveting without being able to see the bucking bar is strange and scary -- you can do a lot of damage if the bar is touching something besides the rivet.
Which brings us to my heavily padded bucking bar. I added layers of cloth so that the bar would hit the rivet square when pressed up inside the oddly-shaped spar.
Then I tried to assemble the counterbalance ribs into the skin...they appear impossible to rivet to the spar since the skin is in the way. The manual, of course, is silent on this issue. I see some pop rivets in my future...