Let’s put the Left Flap together.....
Pictured below is the “skeleton” for the Left Flap. I started by clecoing the whole assembly together and then installed the rivets. All of the rivets used for this assembly were AN470AD4-4 universal rivets. The two pictures below show a couple angles of the completed “skeleton”. The next step is to install the Top, Bottom, and Nose Skins.
Now, going back to installing the rivets in the “skeleton” above. I’ve seen on other builder’s installing these rivets with hand squeezers, but found it was kind of a pain. The rivets on either end of the assembly were very easy to set with a hand squeezer, but the other one’s.....not so much (for me anyway). Initially, I tried using the rivet gun with a 1/8 Double Offset Cup Rivet Set and bucking bar. This mostly worked okay, but I ended up having to drill out a few rivets due to putting “smilies” on them and I wasn’t overall happy with the results.
So, I decided to come up with another plan. Here is one of the steel bucking bars I have.
I drilled two #12 holes in the two corners of the fattest part as shown below. I then used my belt sander to make sure the surface would allow the rivet set to sit flush on the bucking bar.
Once that was complete, I installed the rivet set into the top hole.....
.....and bottom hole to check the fit. I had to drill each hole a little deeper due to the shank on the rivet set, but it otherwise fit like I wanted.
Here is an example of how it was used. Because the bar was long and heavy, it provided plenty of “bucking authority” on the rivet. I used the rivet gun with a flat set to backset the rivets. It worked perfectly. I wish I would have come up with this idea several months ago when I was installing the Ribs to the Wing’s Main Spar. Anyway, I have it now and it works perfectly.
