Building tools

A handy tip that I learned from one of the guys at the EAA meeting is to build some guides for both drilling operations and rivet removal operations. A little drill guide using a piece of round bar with either a #30, or #40 hole is a handy tool that ensures that when drilling a hole with a hand held drill, the drill bit is perpendicular to the piece. If you can have a tab welded to the side it will allow you to have a place to use a clamp on it.

A similar guide is great for using under a piece when you need to use a punch to remove a rivet.  The trick is to have a hole in the tool that is just slightly larger than the shop rivet head. If you ever need to punch the rivet out, the tool used would support the aluminum around the rivet and is helps you avoid bending the aluminum while driving out a particularly stubborn rivet.

I had ordered a few round bar pieces last week. All were 2" long and I got some 1" diameter and some 1-1/2" diameter. In retrospect....the 2" length is just too long.

I think I will re-order some pieces that 1" long and get some 1" dia, and 1-1/4" diameter. and use those as my drill guides. (Update....This is an excellent size 1" diameter and 1" long. Drill some on center, and some off to one side. The ones drilled off to the side come in handy for those tight areas)

I decided to use my 2" x 1-1/2"dia piece to make a guide for punching out AD4-X rivets. Driving these rivets out of the thick spar doublers has been a cause of much frustration for me. Hopefully this tool will safe grief for me in the future. I started out by marking center on a piece. I then set up the drill press and made a pilot hole with a small 1/16" bit.

 I then enlarged the hole with a 15/64" bit. Turns out that this hole size will allow removal of both a AD4-X and AD5-X rivet.