HS riveting
We’re riveting! With Julie’s helped we did all of the field (i.e. can’t reach with a squeezer) rivets on the bottom side of the left HS. It took a fair amount of monkeying with air pressure and the regulator at the gun in order to get the right combo. We used 80# at the compressor outlet and about 1/2 closed on the gun regulator. We practiced a bit on a piece of scrap until Julie felt she had the timing down pretty good. She generally would shoot for 3 seconds. And then I’d signal whether it needed another 1/2 second by visually looking at it. And then I’d follow up with the gauge after a whole line was done.
The rivets turned out better than I expected. It wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. I did have to drill out one rivet. I let the bucking bar slip off the shop head. Julie was so understanding, “It’s nobody’s fault.”
I had a tough time getting even the small bucking bar into the small space inside the HS. I ended up polishing a spot on the side of the bucking bar–easily done with the grinder followed by Scotch-brite.
We also shot the two 470AD4 rivets that hold the 702 and 706 together, per the instructions. That took more adjustments with the rivet gun, since they’re a bigger rivet. It was also hard for Julie to keep the gun on the round head (vs. the flat heads with the 426AD3 rivets on the skin). She did a great job, though.
Big day. It’s starting to look like a real airplane part!!
