Didn’t make much progress over the weekend, but I set up the cradles and skins, then started riveting the nose ribs to the skins. It’s been a while since I bucked rivets, as most of the rudder was done with the squeezer, back riveting, or pop rivets. I made a practice piece to remind myself how to do it, and to ensure I had the right air pressure at the gun. Access is a bit awkward, especially for the forward most rivets. The skins are deep enough where it’s a stretch getting a hand down inside, and near the leading edge, there’s not enough room for a hand, a bucking bar, and a rivet. I finished this step on one skin, getting the three nose ribs in (the 4th one is attached to the spar and gets riveted in later), and started on the second. I’ve got a few rivets that will need to be drilled out and redone, but I’ll worry about that once I have the whole step completed. I may end up using flush pop rivets in the forward rivet holes, since it’s hard getting a bucking bar on those rivets, and I managed to mess up a few of them.
The forward-most rivets in this rib are both bent and not fully formed. I’ll drill out and replace:
