Brief Description: Riveting Nose & Top Skins to Spar & Ribs
This was a frustrating session today. The nose ribs/counterbalance assembly is riveted into the nose skin. Right away I saw that the screws holding the ribs to the tube were going to interfere with setting the rivets, so I had to remove and reinsert them with the nut on the interior of the tube.
The forwardmost two rivets in the nose skin c/t the ribs take a MK-319 blind fastener and the rest are solid rivets. I had real trouble trying to set the rivets correctly. I kept getting proud heads and had to drill out about 1/3 of them. One in particular I had to drill out five times! I eventually figured out that the rib flange on that one was not at 90 deg to the rib and wasn't laying flat against the skin. I put in a slightly longer rivet and on the sixth try I got an acceptable result.
Spar was positioned and riveted to the rib flanges. Top skin assembly added and riveted to the spar and nose skin. Of course, once I finished I noticed I had forgotten to put in one of the nose skin rivets I had to drill out and now I had no access to the interior of the nose unless I drilled out all of the rivets. That wasn't going to happen, so I just installed a MK-319 blind rivet. I'll check with Vans on Monday to make sure this is acceptable.
The next step is to rivet the end ribs to the spar, but that area is so tight that I couldn't fit a rivet set in there or a bucking bar. I might be able to use an extended set with the manufactured head on the aft side of the spar and use my back riveting plate to buck it. However, I was tired and frustrated so I called it a night.
Needed to pinch the skins at the ribs to help take out the gap b/t skin and rib flange
Riveting the top skin to the spar and nose skin
Can't get either a rivet set or a bucking bar in this tight space. Grrrrr!!!
