Jay came over to help with the riveting. The plan was to knock out both LH and RH sides in one day. Well, I significantly underestimated how long it would take and by nightfall completed only the RH side. I still have to complete riveting the inboard rib, but those rivets are accessable by squeezer so I can do that by myself.
We were humming along pretty smoothly, but I had to take several breaks because my mid and lower back was hurting from holding the rivet gun away from my body. We had arranged the LE so that it was closer to Jay so he could get his arms inside to buck.
Ribs were riveted and then the J-stiffener without too much trouble.
There were only a few rivets I needed to drill out because they were a bit proud. Unfortunately, there was a rivet on the top skin that when I tried to punch it out after drilling off the head it bent the tab. The rivet fragment is still stuck in the hole, but I'm not sure how to remove it. I'll need to get Van's opinion on the best way to proceed here. I think my options are: 1) bend the tab up and fill the hole with a rivet, 2) try to bend it back down and use a blind rivet in hopes of it pulling the tab the rest of the way back to the skin, 3) drill out all of the rivets c/t the skin to remove the rib, bend the tab back and rivet the rib as per plans.
I'll have to contact Van's builder support (again) to figure out my way forward.
Jay and I worked well as a riveting team
Nearly finished with the RHS except for the flange tab screwup in the next picture
Not sure how to handle this so I'll call Van's builder support tomorrow morning
