So this is really the time when you need a rivet buddy. I know others will tell me they were able to do it all by themselves, but honestly I didn’t want to make too many errors trying to do it myself. The result was that it took almost 2 months for me to complete the top skin on the right wing.
Some observations and things I’ll do differently on the left wing.
- As nice as backriveting looks, I’m not going to do that again. I feel like I drilled out too many rivets that just didn’t set correctly with the back-rivet set. Most likely due to me not being good at using the offset back rivet set, or do to the fact there is limited space to set these rivets.
- Do more rivets myself when possible. Basically a there are some areas that you can rivet solo (near the rear spar and on the outboard and inboard ends).
Since I finished up my IFR training, I’m also around more on weekends so hopefully that helps with getting my wife to help out or some buddies over to help rivet. But still I’m a little exhausted working on the wing skins at the moment. I think I’m going to either start on the tanks, fixing some of the rivets on the leading edges, or move forward and start on the flaps and ailerons. Just need to feel more productive before I go back to setting rivets. (also need to paint the Left wing top-skin before the weather starts to turn on me.)
Video is a bit jumpy as I didn’t record ever rivet session. I’ll see if I can fix that a bit for the other skin.