Started Re-work of the elevators - 3 hours

After quite a long hiatus I decided to dive back into the project. I had received the new elevator spar and ribs parts a while ago. I started by filing separating and filing the E-00001A/B doubler plates. I then ran them through the scotchbrite wheel to clean them up. I then cleco'd then onto the E-702 spars and match drilled the assembly. I proceeded to cleco the E-703/E-704 together and then cleco'd them to E-702. 

Once I finished match drilling that portion I then went to cleco the counterbalance skin on and noticed that the left E-714 counterweight was drilled incorrectly. I couldn't believe my eyes. Seems that when I drilled it I had set the weight 180deg the opposite direction so that the weight would point in, not out. I just had to laugh. It's not expensive to order another one and do it right...it's just a long wait for it to come by snail mail. (I have to cut the soaring shipping costs) 

2015 Camrose Fly-in Breakfast

I attended my first fly-in breakfast in Camrose Alberta. What a fun event. It was a treat to see a number of different planes. I focused on the Van's Aircraft. I was really interested in taking a look at some of the examples and I was not disappointed. I was able to view three of the many RV-7A's up close. One of the RV's in my opinion was a bit of a poor build quality on the tail. 

On the other hand, there were two very beautiful examples of really nice quality work. I met the Pilot (Jay) of C-FXPT who in my opinion has a very beautiful example. It was a pleasure to be able to talk to Jay and get some of his advice. I thank him very much for his time. Did I mention that he has a very nice paintjob!!

After leaving the Fly-in, I felt reassured that I was making the right choices to accept/reject some of my build quality. It helped lift my spirits to soldier on!

I did make mental note that all three planes bent the tabs on the elevator/trim skins rather than fashion riblets....hmmmm

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.