After all the hard work of building, prepping, priming, drilling and getting the horizontal stabilizer to this point, I’m finally getting to do some riveting! This is always the most exciting part of the build process because it is where you get the most visual progress, and best of all…these parts aren’t having to come apart again! I hope you can feel my excitement.
I began by installing clecos in all the holes to clamp together the rear spars HS-603PP and the rear spar reinforcing bars HS-609PP. In all the holes that are not to be riveted at this time, I put a strip of electrical tape. This makes it easy to visually see the areas to avoid.
Now we are ready to rivet. But what side of the spar do you put the rivet head? In case you are ever wondering, there is a standard practice that when riveting sheets of different thicknesses, the manufactured head of the rivet normally goes against the thinner skin, whenever practical.
So with that guidance, I put the rivet heads on the forward side of the spar, against the thinner material. I started by riveting the large 5/32 inch rivets.
Here is the aft side of the spar.
Please comment, I love to hear from my readers. Thanks again for coming along for this ride, you make my work worthwhile.
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