Closed the flaps and started closing the ailerons - 4 hours

Eager to get things finished now that the pre-close is complete. I started closing up the flaps as I thought they would be the easiest. 

Of course they go together fairly quick, there is still a bit of tricky off angle riveting to do. Fortunately nothing really flexes to the standard riveting with a bucking bar works well. You just need to make sure the bar angle is set up properly.

Once I had the flaps buttoned up, I didn't want to stop so I started in on the aileron. Following the procedure in the manual I riveted the leading edge skin to the to the nose rivets. Then I weighted the aileron down on a very flat surface. I started with the pull rivets on the leading edge/counterbalance pipe. One of the tricks I use is to poke electrical tape onto the pulled rivet mandrel. That way when the rivet is pulled, when the mandrel snaps, the work piece is protected reducing the chance of scratches from the mandrel.


I staggered the installation of the pull rivets similar to the method used for the rudder trailing edge in efforts to get a straight aileron. The result is an extremely straight piece!!!