Saturday, November 26, 2016

Disaster stikes the Left aileron - 3 hours

Well, I have gone and done it. Totally ruined my left aileron trying to rivet the skin to the main spar. What an awful area to try and rivet. The spar flange has a slight acute angle to it which presents a bit of a challenge to get the bucking bar at an angle to help sit flush with the rivets. I used just about every method I could think of to try and rivet these properly. I used a small oak shim in an attempt to prop up, or adjust the tungsten bucking bar to the appropriate angle. I've tried different bucking bars, different angles, different shims, taking angry, talking pleasant, massaging it, giving it a break, everything!!!! and in the end, every rivet shop head wants to dump to the same side every time. Worse than the right aileron.  Of course once a dimpled rivet hole has been dumped now the nightmare begins. Will it dump again, well chances of it going awry are growing. Too many times, now an opps rivet. ****! the oops rivet has dumped...They all dump in the same direction. After about 3 hours if consistently terrible rivets all dumped the same direction I have successfully ruined a potentially perfect aileron.

Today....building my plane has not brought joy to my life!!

Just a sampling of how things have gone astray....It all starts going downhill from here!

In retrospect I am trying to figure out why this is happening. I'm not sure if its a fitment issue with the three pieces, if I have a bucking bar angle problem, or am I simply pressing too hard with the rivet gun. Perhaps if I am pressing too hard with the gun, the angle inwards is going to increase that angle, lending itself to dumping those rivets down. The more I think about it, I bet that's exactly what happened!

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