Riveting Elevator Skins

Getting to a point where the elevators can be closed up soon - another part coming to completion!!

Below is the upper skin of the left elevator showing the piano hinge of the elevator trim tab

Left elevator almost constructed while the right elevator skeleton above it in comparison.

Below is the special tool - RV-14 trailing edge bucking bar I purchased from (I think) Vans. Highly recommended as it makes bucking the trailing edge rivets much easier.

When the elevator is setup correctly just back from the edge of the work bench, these angles create a parallel surface to set the rivets aligned with the under side of the rear spar.

Elevator should be away from the edge of the workbench while the Bucking Bar gains leverage from the edge of the bench...

Partially through setting the rear spar skin rivets on the top left elevator...

...and viola!! I only messed up one of these rivets when the bucking bar slipped off the rivet head - only did that once.

This was an interesting one - the rear spar rivets set perfectly but when setting the elevator rib rivets (the vertical line of rivets in the photo below), I could not get the manufactured head to seat flush into the skin. these rivets were being set using back-riveter on the plate recessed into my workbench.

I figured out later this seemed to be due to the surface of the workbench being slightly higher(<2mm) than the back-riveting plate. This slight height difference in addition to the rear spar and skin not wanting to deflect down to the level of the back-riveting plate caused the 2 rib rivets closest to the spar to not want to sit flush with the skin when set as can be seen here...

So after two attempts with the back-rivet technique, I thought I'd try the pneumatic squeezer - surely this should work perfectly as it always did previously.

Nope. Put a nice little dimple in the skin.

I'm still not sure how it did that, but it looks worse in the photo than it was in real life and with a couple of taps from behind, flattened off the skin again. I had the Vans web page up and was ready to purchase another skin - luckily not required.

Here are the ribs all (mostly) back-riveted into place.

Riveting the E-1410 Trim Access Reinforcement Doubler and the E-1411 Doubler Brace.

Reinforcement Doubler and Doubler Brace nut-plates installed... 

And the rivets as well. There's something satisfying about the flush rivets all set inside the polished aluminium skin....

Now to rivet the other side of the rear spars prior to gluing the trailing edge wedges into place and then the trailing edge wedge. Before I can do this though, I need to have them inspected prior to closing up the elevators and the trim tab.

Almost done.