Left HS riveting

5.6 hours and 250 rivets!

Monday night

Riveted all four of the intermediate ribs to front spar. Figured it was best to do all of them now rather than trying to do two after the left HS was assembled.

Riveted the left HS nose ribs to the skin. Did this solo, and it was a pain. Much easier with help. But no major boo-boo's in the process. It's hard to get those first, leading edge middle ribs set right. The inboard and outboard ribs are easy. The squeezer makes everything perfect with a little care.

Clecoed the front spar to left HS skin.

Blind riveted mid nose rib to main rib and spar.

The first three blind rivets.

Riveted the inboard main rib to shim, spar, and nose rib. This was difficult. Took me a while to realize the double offset driver was the right tool. Even with this, managed to chew up one of the factory heads a little.



Tuesday
Rivet outboard left HS nose rib.
Rivet most of front spar to left skin.
Katrin doing bucking.

Wednesday
Finished front spar/left HS skin riveting. Started solo, but then got welcomed help.

Now the left side just needs the rear spar.

Riveted all main ribs to skin and outboard ribs to spar.






Katrin and Granger helped with bucking.

Out of all those rivets, only drilled out one. One of the inboard skin/spar/main rib 3-4.5 rivets didn't set properly in the rib tang. Drilled, punched it out, and set a new rivet with the squeezer. I think I tried to drive it with the gun the first time. Wrong thing to do. Also, using side clamp clecoes to hold the rib tangs helps a lot, whenever possible. They get in the way of the squeezer, so it takes some time to get them in just the right place.