I finished the practice piece tonight! With everything ready to rivet, I got started by squeezing most of the rivets on the ribs on one skin. The last two rivets on the trailing edge of the rib are so tight I couldn’t squeeze then with the pneumatic squeezer. I got one with the hand squeezer, and for the last one I had to shape a thin bucking bar to get it done. Unfortunately I scratched the rib in the process, and the shop head was ugly. I got the second skin done following the same process, and added the trailing edge wedge before closing it up. Back riveting the trailing edge wedge was quite simple in the end, and it came out straight and clean. The last step was bending the leading edges of the skins and pop riveting them together. The first skin went well, with a nice uniform shape achieved. The second skin didn’t go quite as well, and I ended up with a bend that was less uniform. Once shaped, I wasn’t able change the radius of the bend, so I just went ahead and riveted it up to finish the project. Overall I was reasonably happy. I learned some lessons and figured out my tools, although I’d like to start again with a new practice kit and see how much better I could do next time. I would also like some practice priming with my spray gun before jumping into the airplane kit for real.
