Tonight, I decided I wanted to get started on backriveting the stiffeners. First, I had to finish edge prepping them, and get them primed. Here are my edge prepping tools for these stiffeners.
Permagrit, scotchbrite, an edge deburring tool, and one of the stiffeners. Sorry about the dirty table, that's from me waxing my skis. See the big spot near the top of the picture. That's from me getting wax on the iron, and trying to scrape it off using the table. Maybe I'll turn my benchtop over tonight so I look like a clean builder again.
After getting a few of them prepped, I went ahead and started priming.
Stiffeners drying.
Here’s the right skin, ready to accept the stiffeners.
Right skin, with rivets ready to go.
At first, I tried this backriveting extra long double offset rivet set I got from Avery. I don’t really like this thing. With the pressure turned all the way up to 50 psig, the rivets weren’t really setting well, and the plastic sheath was marring the stiffeners.
Here's what I tried the for the first stiffener.
Although the results are good, I ended up switching to another set.
Very pretty. I'm sure some of that marring will come out during polish. Very nice surface, though.
Then I switched sets to a large7/16″ cupped set, which worked well to keep the set (with no plastic sheath) on the rivet as it was being driven, but left some of them with a little bit of a rounded edge. I’m sure this is okay, but need to have someone come look at it.
Still, they look pretty good.
Here’s a better shot. They are okay, but not perfect.
See the slight rounded edge to them? I'm sure that is okay.
I managed to get through 4 stiffeners before I started getting tired and went to bed.
4 of 8 stiffeners done on the right skin.
I pulled the tape off of the exterior side…these look really good. I am excited to maybe polish the rudder so you can all admire my work.
1 hour today, 50 rivets. Wuhoo!
Andrew's RV-7 Build Log 