Brief Description: 1 - Replaced solid rivets in center spar
Nearly a month has passed since I was in the shop. That was due to a combination of business & personal travel, the purchase of a vacation cabin, along with a bit of admitted builder's frustration with this detour. I can't say you'll see steady work every few days (because there is more to be done on the cabin), but I feel like I'm back on track with today's successes. My first task was to fabricate a spacer to simulate the main spar of the wings. This was done with two 1/4" doublers, a web of .040" and the modification doubler of .125". With the primer that was already on the doublers, it brought the thickness to approximately 17.4mm which is almost precisely what I measured on my actual spars. Because I previously removed the last six rivets along the spar cap doubler, this make it possible for the ends to expand to accept the mock up spar spacer. With that in place, I drilled the rivet holes up from 5/32" to 3/16" and installed the new upsized rivets. I believe this was the solution that had to be done. Everything else touching the center spar may have contributed to my tight fit before, but this was the primary offender. Now I can move ahead to fabricate new doublers for the bottom and side skins and take this show on the road back to the airport.
Spacer in place
Spacer allows new rivets to be set with wider opening