Hitting the elevator wall - 1 hour

I cleco'd the E-703/704 assembly to the E-702 spar and quickly found out that I could not get the squeezer in to set the AD4-4 rivets. There was just no way, and it didn't matter what yoke I used. So, the only way to set the rivets was to then use a bucking bar and a double offset rivet set. I set out to set the rivet and quickly bent the rivet. I drilled it out and tried again. nope...strike two. I decided to leave it and try to set the bottom one. Strike three. I made a bit of a mess of the holes. I was now fairly annoyed with what I had done. I went inside the house to reassess what I was doing. After an hour break, I came back and tried again on the other elevator. Going very slow I began to set the rivet. It set fairly nice, and then my rivet set slipped off the head and put a nice smiley face on the manufactured head. Crap. So I decided to try to set the bottom one. Again going slow I began to set it when the gun slipped off the head and really did a number. Double crap. I decided I was done for the day and put everything down.

I came back later and assessed the damage. I'm certain that I could have drilled out the bad rivets and cleaned things up. I could have gone to an AD5 rivet and possibly saved the day. But I was just too worried that I might bend the rivet again and be in the same boat, just more defeated. I considered the fact that it has been a very long time since I had bucked rivets, and using a double offset rivet set by myself, was certainly not making things easier.

I then reasoned that if I started again with new 702/703/704 parts and adjusted the order of riveting, I could set all the needed rivets with the squeezer instead of bucking some of them. The best strategy at this point is to start again, but this time rivet E-702 and E-704 together first. Then I would rivet E-703 to E702/704. Another lesson learned!!!! I really need to think about the order of putting things together so to make sure I do it the best way from the beginning!