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!

Starting to Rivet Elevator - 2 hours

I decided to at least try using the squeezer on setting rivets in the 703/704 ribs. If I couldn't make it work then I would try the hammer and punch method. It turned out that using the squeezer was not so bad. It was a bit of work to slip the yoke over, insert the dies, adjust the dies and then squeeze. But once your set up and set the first rivet to the proper amount, all the other rivets come fairly easy. It's just a matter of moving cleco's around in order to move the squeezer. I ended up only having to drill out one rivet and reset it.

Update - See May 24ths post. Don't set these rivets just yet!

A little bit of research

Tried to do a bunch of investigation on how best to rivet the 703/704 ribs together. A friend suggested using a punch and a hammer and set them by hand. Almost no build logs on the net described how they set these rivets. I found that mike bullocks site described using the longeron yoke on the squeezer and then installed the dies once the yoke was around the piece. I think that this option is the best seeing that I feel very comfortable using the squeezer.

Priming Elevator Skeleton Parts - 2 hours

 Primed the elevator skeleton parts.

At the end on the day about 12 hours after priming, I cleco'd E703 and e-704 together. I quickly found out that using the squeezer on these parts will be quite difficult due to the flanges being in the way. I scratched my head for a while and decided to not go any further on the part.

Preping Elevator Skeleton Parts - 1.5 hours

I deburred all the holes on the elevator skeleton pieces and then went to work with a light file on the edges of the pieces. I Finished the edges with the 3m wheel.

This process was shown to me by a friend and I think it works extremely well. Previously I was just cleaning/deburring edges with a 3m wheel, but there was always a slight bump where there was shear marks in the piece. Using a small light file over the edges then a light buff with the wheel produces excellent results.