A quick check revealed the pneumatic squeezer fitted with a longeron yoke is able to access the rivet holes nicely. Admittedly, I did not check the clearance at the flaperon hinge … it looks tight there, but since all the other rivet holes can be riveted with solid rivets, that is what I’ll be doing and will deal with the hinge later. Using a rivet gauge, it was determined the proper size of rivet to rivet the rear spar onto the W-1210 rib flanges would be an AN470AD4-4 rivet … so they will be used in place of the LP4-3 pop rivets the plans call for.
ribs with the pneumatic squeezer using AN470AD4-4 rivets.
At first it appeared to be a good idea to keep the wing assembly vertical (as in the above photo) so I would not have to hold the mass of the squeezer with my still quite sore right arm. While this was a good idea and did work, it was very difficult and time consuming to keep the vinyl tubing over the rivets (remember the vinyl tubing trick from a previous post?) and position the squeezer while gravity is working against you. Tomorrow will try to lay the skeleton assembly horizontally so the vinyl won’t slip off the rivets … will just have to tough it out with my sore arm or try holding the squeezer mostly with my left hand.
The vinyl tubing I’m referring to has been discussed earlier, but basically is a small piece of tubing a little longer than the rivet which is slipped over the shaft of the rivet prior to squeezing. The idea here is as the pneumatic squeezer’s piston begins to pushing out, it hits the vinyl tubing first and compresses it into the flange of the rib keeping it tight to the rear spar before the rivet begins to be compressed. This keeps the parts compressed tightly together before the rivet begins setting. Since the vinyl is malleable, it just collapses under the pressure and does not interfere with the proper setting of the rivets. I’ll try to remember to post a photo tomorrow of the vinyl tubing in use.
