Not a huge day today, but I did go shopping. Recently, the self-etching primer has been getting to me unless I am completely outside the garage while priming. Sometimes, I can always be completely outside, so this might make it bearable in the garage.
MEK, a respirator, and some latex gloves.
When I started looking around the shop, I found this monstrosity just laying there, dead, out in the open. He must have crawled through the spider spray I laid down around the perimeter. He’s huge.
That's a quarter.
Anyway, I am not too happy with the outside rivet I installed yesterday. I ended up using a double offset set as the bucking bar, and I just don’t like the shop heads.
Bad shop head there on the left.
Same there on the right.
I got them drilled out, and figured that the materials on both sides were thick enough to ignore the “shop head on the side with the thinnest material” rule. I put the machined heads in here, and bucked from the front.
These look much better, even though they aren't all facing the same direction.
Here they are from the other side.
I am much happier with these.
Then, on to the counterbalance. Because I don’t have a #10 dimple die, I decided to countersink these, and use them as the female die.
First try. Obviously to shallow, but I wanted to approach it slowly.
Another iteration.
Another iteration.
Check it with the screw. Nope, not yet.
Closer.
Another try.
There we go.
Then, after trying a few things to see how to dimple the rib, I ended up putting the screw in the hole and using my squeezer (with no “upper” set so the screw goes through the hole in the yoke) as the dimple die.
This worked surprisingly well.
Here are the final dimples. If I had it to do over again, I would spring for the #10 dies. I’m sure I”ll have to use them throughout the project. I’m going to put them on the list.
Final dimples. Not perfect, but good enough.
2 rivets drilled out. Half an hour. Not bad for a busy Sunday.
Andrew's RV-7 Build Log 