Left Elevator Skins

Time to hit some left elevator main spar rivets. I could get to these with the pneumatic squeezer, so life was good.

Left elevator done. Now to the fun part - creating the bend in the leading edge.

Left elevator - tight spot

The underside of the left elevator looks pretty harmless, right?

These two tiny little AN470AD3-3.5 rivets look fairly harmless, but they're in a spot that's very difficult to get to with the tools I have.

I originally thought this would be perfect for the pneumatic squeezer - nope. The fixed side of the squeezer was touching the shop head adjacent to the rivet I was trying to squeeze. This meant the concave half of rivet set couldn't sit squarely on the top of the rivet. Same with the manual squeezer.

Had to go ask someone who know more about this than me.....Steeeeeeeeeeveeee!!!

More right elevator riveting

These three MK-319-BS rivets had to be this type on the underside to close up the elevator.

This post however, is all about the E-903 flange rivets.

Having said that, there's not much say about them as they did exactly what they supposed to do and set properly.

There'll be more exciting posts to come, I promise.

More riveting moments on the elevators

Finishing off riveting the E-905 left root rib to the upper and lower skins. No issues here as I was able to use the pneumatic squeezer which makes life so much easier.

All done.

I've left these two AN470AD3-4's as neither the manual squeezer nor the pneumatic squeezer fit in the space. Need to have a think and see what tools my friends have that I could borrow.

Need to get in there with the bucking bar sight unseen and try to hit the shop head flat.

This side's a little easier to see.

See those two little rivets down the end on the right? Well, got to get them somehow too.

One cleco; one rivet. Now to see if I hit it straight.

Bugger - didn't take the 'after' shot.

I got it though.