Over the previous couple of years I've randomly dropped into metal fab factories in the hope they'd have some small piece of steel I could use as a back-riveting plate. For whatever reason, that approach hasn't been very successful. I therefore decided to visit a steel fab/engineering workshop to request a piece be cut to size.
It cost me $60, but I've got what I want...
Again, I only realised after the fact that I didn't take any progress photos.
I've supported the backing plate underneath by four steel straps (one across each corner) which made the underside flush and the top-side not. You can sort of just see in the below image that the plate sits proud of the workbench by about 5mm. Flush would've been better but it was easier to do it the way I'll show...
I found some left-over carpet squares from some place you'll never guess. They turned out to be approx 7mm which then made the back-riveting plate sit lower by 2mm. This was a great result as I can now slide aluminium sheets around and not have them be scratched by the steel plate.
One final finishing touch I haven't yet completed is to draw lines on the carpet squares highlighting the boundaries of the plate. I learnt an expensive lesson when back-riveting one of the rudder skins so I would highly advise adding these lines when installing a back-riveting plate.
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