Installing the Aft Deck

Continuing on with the Aft Deck, this rivet looks ok.......from the top side.

Not so good from here. Got a little bent sideways so had to drill this one out. I may have been able to salvage it if I could somehow get in from the other side, but that was too difficult and could've just made things worse.

At least access to the top of the rivet was very easy.

Perfect! Bang in the middle.

All done!! Looks quite good with the round rivet heads.

Sort of getting to see how the tail might almost look when it's on the plane. This obviously won't be really being installed for another 3ish years I'd be guessing.

Just thought I'd take a shot of before and after drilling the 1/4" hole which will no doubt hold the Vert Stab on...

Riveting the Right F-01473 Skin

Getting closer to being able to make plane noises!!

Center line of rivets almost done on the right F-01473 skin...

Pretty happy with these. I didn't have too many rivets on this skin that didn't do the wrong thing. Maybe the lower air pressure assisted with that.

Spoke to soon....I had too much pressure on the bucking bar which pushed the manufactured head of the rivet a little proud of the skin. Additionally, the bucking bar touched the flange and put a nice line in it.

Better drill out another one...

Drill in a couple of mm. Enough for the punch to get purchase on the lip of the drill hole so I can snap the head off the rivet...

Nope - doesn't want to play.

Need drill some more...

That's better - head snapped off nicely.

Here it is...got the drill almost in the middle.

I don't like using the punch to tap it out from the other side as I've been bitten previously by rivets that don't let go easily and therefore hitting the rivet from the other side actually ends up bending the flange or tab.

I find the small tin snips work well as I can wiggle it out gently.

Ta-daaaa!

Both offending halves - I am offended.

...and the undamaged hole awaiting the next perfect rivet....hopefully.

Bugger - bucking bar slipped off the rivet.

Had to drill that one out and install another.

Much better, although left a small mark.

The photo below shows how tight this spot is for the bucking bar I have. You can obviously get smaller ones, but I don't have one - that's another $150!

This is in between the F-01411B & F-01412A Bulkheads.

These ones had to be done by feel as my left hand was holding the rivet gun.

Very fiddly, but done.

There's that edge I was referring to in a recent post - very flush.

Paint should look good on this surface - nice and flat.

Hmmm, better drill that out...

Unfortunately, I'm getting better at drilling rivets out. It doesn't look too bad from this side, but I didn't take a photo of the shop-head so let's not focus on that shall we?

For the record, I thought I'd add a sequence of images showing the removal of a rivet set that didn't go quite according to plan.

1) For the simple reason I don't want to drill any section of the skin or structure of the plane, I need to make sure (as much as I can) that I'm drilling out only the rivet. That being the case, I find it best to start drilling in what you think is the centre of the rivet. For various reason (lighting; width of drill; angle of drill), sometimes I may not be able to know I'm not actually drilling in the centre of the rivet. Therefore, I drill for few short revolutions and check. Below is not quite in the middle but at this point it can be straightened.

2) Change the angle of the drill slightly so I'm drilling more towards the centre but being careful not to increase the angle too much or the drill bit may go skidding off down the skin.

3) Drill about 1-2mm into the rivet and break off the rim of the rivet head as below

4) At this stage, I would normally grab the other side of the rivet with a small pair of side-cutters and gently wiggle it free which works most of the time.

5) I can't recall why (at the time of writing this), but I've drilled right through the rivet which obviously makes it difficult to grab whatever's left. I'm assuming the shop head, was so damaged I couldn't get a grip on it which meant I was forced to push the remnants through with a punch.

Maybe there's a better way to do this, but I haven't seen it yet.

It's not all flutterbys and unicorns

Time to remove dodgy rivets in the Horizontal Stab.

The following images show the horizontal stabiliser skins mostly riveted to the spars and ribs. As help was a little scarce, I decided that as I could reach both sides at the same time if I stood above the HS when sitting in the stands, I'd give it a go with the bucking bar and rivet gun.

Most looked pretty good, but when the shop end of the rivet was analysed a little closer, they weren't very acceptable. As a result, I went through and inspected the shop head on the inside of the skins on all four sides and marked the rivets I needed to drill out and re-do.

Sorry - not a very exciting post, but it shows how many I had to drill out and re-do. Maybe I should've tried a bit harder to bribe a friend to come and help...