A Frustrating Day

Today was a frustrating day at the factory. I got an early start and worked almost ten hours, but it feels like I didn't accomplish much. I started off the day by completing the edge finishing and fluting of the vertical stabilizer ribs and spars. I had started prepping them for assembly while horizontal stabilizer construction was on hold for priming supplies.

Then I set out to begin riveting the HS together. That's where the trouble began. I struggled all day with my riveting. I scratched up my newly primed parts in a few places. One where the rivet gun slipped off the rivet and put a nice gash in the bar stock. That needed to be smoothed out with a Scotchbrite wheel.

I proceeded to continue riveting the HS skeleton together. At one point I found a decent rhythm. Most of the rivets attaching the 603PP and 609PP went well, however at the end of the day I put the forward and rear spars on the workbench for a quick picture (see below). As it turns out, I incorrectly identified the the rivet holes attaching the HS405 ribs to the rear spar. So tomorrow those will need to be drilled out. The HS405 Ribs are hiding the offending rivets in the picture below, but they're there.


The final straw was trying to rivet the HS707 nose rib to the HS skin. The first rivet went well. I was surprised at how much easier it was to set the smaller 3/32" rivets compared to the 1/8" rivets I had been working with. The next two rivets put an end to my night in the workshop. On the second rivet, my bucking bar apparently slid off the rivet and put a dent in the rib and skin. A nice impression of the side of the bucking bar on my pristine skin! The third and final rivet, appeared to set okay, but upon closer inspection, it must not have been tight against the skin. After bucking it was sitting just a little proud. That was it, I was done. I'll deal with the aftermath tomorrow. The silver lining is I'll get lots of practice drilling out rivets tomorrow. Ugh!