Kurt moving Clecos along the left F-1273 corner
skin and bottom skin joint.
After finishing up riveting the overlaps of the bottom & corner skins on the belly of the RV-12, work commenced on adding more rivets into the right F-1270 side skin working from the tail cone forward. The plan is to rivet forward to the center channel area and leave the forward half of the side skins Clecoed so the side skins can be loosened later and hopefully provide easy access for installing the rudder pedal assembly.
Kurt setting some rivets into the right F-1270 side
skin with the pneumatic rivet puller.
Builder note: Builders of newer RV-12 kits know the fuselage kits now include the F-1270A and F-1270D side skin doublers. Three vertical rows of rivet holes in the F-1270-A skin doubler receive a stronger CR3213-4-2 pop rivet made by Cherry. These rivets go into flanges on the F-1204 & F-1204F center channel bulkheads. Use great care when installing the side skins and doublers … the Cherry rivets are very close tolerance rivets and alignment of the various layers of materials is critical. It is possible to get a Cleco into all the holes but the CR3213-4-2 rivets won’t go in. Suggest pinning a few random holes with the rivets to hold the perfect alignment then secure the side skins with Clecos. Now if the holes are off slightly, it is easy to tweak them. The CR3213-4-2 rivet also sets differently than the standard pop rivet. There are TWO “pops”. When you hear or feel the first “pop” the rivet’s mandrel needs to be pulled even tighter until the mandrel breaks off with the second “pop”. Also, don’t be alarmed when you see a small washer fly off the rivet …. This is normal and occurs when the mandrel breaks flush with the rivet.
Photo of the Cherry CR3213-4-2 rivets … note the
washer and mandrel that breaks off the rivet during the second “pop”.
Using a hand rivet puller to set a Cherry CR3213-4-2
pop rivet into the center section.
Did not quite have enough time to finish
riveting the right F-1210A side skin doubler. In the photo bellow the two long
vertical rows have the Cherry CR3213-4-2 pop rivets installed into the center section.
My finger is pointing to the third and final row
of rivet holes that will receive the stronger Cherry CR3213-4-2 pop rivets.
