Drilled the 2nd left aileron counterbalance pipe - 3.5 hours

Next order of business is to drill the aileron counterbalance pipe. Truth be told, this is not a process that I enjoy. It takes a bit of time and you pretty much need to do the drilling by hand. I cleco'd the assembly together and started drilling the holes with #40 drill bit. I inserted a #40 cleco in each hole as I drilled. Then, I went back and drilled out all the holes with #30.

Once all the drilling was done, I then set up the drill press and countersink the pipe to accept the pull rivets. One item that I did differently this time round was to dimple the leading edge skin of the aileron by hand with a mallet rather than using the rivet gun on light pressure. One or two light taps with the mallet is all that was needed to provide a crisp dimple.


I then prep'd and primed all the remaining pieces and began riveting the nose rib to the counterbalance pipe.