Birthday Wishes & First Completion

Happy Belated, 236th Birthday United States! It's been a pretty incredible week with days at work, days off, working on my mistress, etc. I had to work Monday and Tuesday, off Wednesday for our nation's birthday celebration, back to work Thursday and off Friday.

My company has a 9/80 work week. It's confusing as heck at first but pretty nice, and you get used to us pretty quickly. The only nicer work week is the 4/10s. We basically have every other Friday off. We work a full week of 9 hour days, but on the first Friday, the first 4 hours complete the week. The second 4 (only an 8 hour day on working Fridays) are then put towards the next week. That week (the second one) I work Mon-Thurs 9 hour days then off the second Friday. The 4 hours that was carried over from the previous Friday, counts in the second week, completing the 40! Anyway, week was a weird work week, trying to get used to when I needed to go in and when I didn't.

Ok, back to work. Monday saw a little rest from the project and I got back to the plane Tuesday, July 3. This looked like a pretty simple evening. all I had to do was rivet HS-710 and HS-714 reinforcement angles to HS-702, the forward spar. Well, this little chore seemed easier said than done. I struggled a bit on and off with some of the riveting. Everything seemed to be going along hunky dory. I felt good about all the rivets I bucked. Then I turned the spar on its back and BAM!! What the hell are those ugly things?

Ever Put A Smile On A Rivet? I Did!
Frowns In This Case

Yep, I wasn't paying attention to the setting of my rivet gun's rivet set on the rivets here and I think that when I did the initial buck, I put the gun down and checked the shop head with the guage tool and felt it (they) needed a little more and when I picked up the gun, it felt like I had the tool on the head. WRONG! Time to drill out some rivets. Here's the process. Be sure to LOOK and make sure the rivet gun is ON and read to go. Hope this helps other builders:

1) Secure Your Work Piece

2) Mark Your Rivet with a Marker
Then Use a Center Punch

3) Drill the Rivet on Center to the Bottom of
the Rivet Head

4) Insert a Punch Sized to the Hole
#30 In This Case

5) Snap the Head of the Rivet Off
This Exposes the Hole & the Rest of the Rivet

6) Use a Light Hammer to Punch out the Rivet

If Done Right, You'll Have a Clean Hole to Re-Rivet

Interestingly enough, I boogered the same locations, opposite of each other. I managed to buck the replacements without incident.

The next SIMPLE part of this little task was to rivet the nose and main HS-404 and HS-405 ribs. Well, hold on. Not so fast! I am starting to liken this riveting thing to my golf game. I love to play golf. I do not profess to be the greatest player. I'm the kind of golfer who knows how to play the game well enough to love to hate the game. I've never taken a lesson, save a tip or two on the practice range with the course pro walking up and down helping golfers here and there. Like drugs, the first one is free, then you're hooked to pay for the rest. Bad analogy, but it fits. That said, I play out of hazards (sand traps, the rough, out of the trees, out of the woods, etc.) quite often. Well, I've become pretty adept at getting out of hazards over the years. Riveting is, for me, a very similar process right now. Though I've had lessons in riveting, I'm no professional. I get by, for now. I check my shop heads often for height and shape to make sure they're straight and the right height. And yes, occasionally I have to "get out of a hazard" and drill one out. Like my hazard game, I'm becoming very adept at drilling out a rivet without damage to the hole, i.e., enlarging, elongating, etc. I know that in time, I'll become more adept at riveting and hopefully, forgo the need for drilling out rivets regularly. So, with that, it took me 2 hours to rivet the two reinforcement angles and the 4 ribs to the forward spar. I drilled several (I lost count) rivets out and re-riveted the same ribs a few times. Part were because I didn't set them very well to begin with and part were because I didn't follow the plans and directions carefully. At one point, I installed the HS-404 ribs without the HS-405 attached with them. They are supposed to be riveted TOGETHER! The thing that confused me was the -404 ribs only use 2 rivets for attachemnt and the -405 ribs use 4. Even with that, I was thinking in a line of 4 rivets, the front rib used the inner two rivet holes and the aft, -405 rib used the outer two. WRONG! Well, I finally got them set to satisfaction, nice and clean!

HOBBS Meter - 37.3 hrs

Wednesday, July 4, American Independence Day! - Today, I started finishing up the horizontal spar (HS) by assembling the forward spar assembly to the HS-601PP skins. This is COOL! It's finally starting to look like part of an airplane. First, I riveted the HS-707 nose rib to the top of the left skin. This is easier said than done. After dimpling the skins and the ribs, the Cleko (cleco) fasteners don't stay in the holes very well. Typically, you can get by with fastening every other hole, but in this case, I need a cleco in every hole. In addition, I needed to be a little creative with that little chore. I used a little duct tape to hold the aft part of the skin trailing edges together, along with another trick. This seemed to work pretty well. I was able to get the rib tight against the upper skin for riveting. Only one drill-out here.

A Little Trick to Get the Skin Tight
Against the HS-707 Nose Rib. No Duct Tape Here

Next, I cleco'd the end, HS-706 rib to the skin then HS-708 temporarily to the skin and the aft flange of that -708 nose rib. This helps hold that rib in place for the riveting the bottom part of the rib to the skin.

HS-707 Nose Rib Riveted to Top of Skin
Getting Ready to Rivet Bottom

After that, remove the -708 rib. Cleco the -706 end rib and -707 nose rib to the skin then cleco -708 back on, then blind rivet. You can't get to the front of this area to hold a bucking bar so you have to put 3 blind rivets in. No bad jokes here about 3 blind mice, I'm punchy enough at this point! :o)  Next, I riveted that -706 end rib to the -702 forward spar. I then riveted the skin to the rest of the ribs. Now, REPEAT all that you just did for the right side skin. Well, it's 9:00 pm and time to watch fireworks so I'll finish the bottom of the right skin riveting to the ribs and spar. I'll pick up here tomorrow.

Ready to Finish Bottom Riveting

HOBBS Meter - 42.9

Thursday, July 5 - I finished the right side bottom of the skin to the ribs and spar. Next, I attached the rear spar assembly to the HS-404, -405, -706 and -601PP skin. There are blind rivets to set on the HS-708 rear spar but you'll do this last, per the directions. I had some more dirll-outs but not many. I had to drill a rivet out that created a figure 8 hole. So, I cut a couple pieces of scrap aluminum and put them on on either side of the damaged spar hole, drilled the new pieces and shaped them to make sure they'd fit the area comortably. I then bucked a new rivet here with the next sized rivet to compensate for the newly added, reinforcement aluminum. Worked like a charm.

Figure 8 Hole Before the fix

The Back Side with Reinforcement

I riveted the skin to the end ribs, HS-706, and inboard ribs, HS-404 and -405. Be careful here, there are 10 rivets that you DO NOT SET. You'll set these later for the faring that will go on the TOP side of the HS. Read the plans and you'll see them. I finished by riveting the skin to the rear spar assembly then pulling the blind rivets (same as a pop rivet) on the HS-708 rib. With that, "Congratulations! You've finished the first major sub-assembly on your new airpane".

Horizontal Stab Complete!

After I turned the HS over, I found an empty rivet hole right smack dab in the middle of the left, bottom skin! AARRGGHHHH! I'll either put a pop rivet (not very likely) there or try to be creative and maybe tape a bucking bar to the end of half a yard stick and slide that in a lightening hole (makes the piece lighter, not like a bolt of lightening, silly) then try to buck it that way. We'll see. Remember the reference of "playing out of hazards" earlier? Well, I think this will be a new trick I can add to my bag of tricks, if I can pull it off. I'll let you know how that goes. Until then, Take Care and Thanks for Reading!

HOBBS Meter - 46.5