With the wiring secured, I started riveted the aft deck. I worked on this over several evenings (6/28 -7/1), doing a few rivets at a time. Mostly this was straight forward, but I did have a couple of frustrations with rivets in tight corners near the aft end, and tucked in close to the protruding bulkhead attach points. I was able to squeeze most of the rivets, but had to use my double-offset rivet set on several. It’s really easy for the double-offset rivet set to jump, and it only takes a tiny skip to cause a smiley face rivet.
I emailed Vans about the rivet length callouts where several different lengths are specified in areas where the same material is being riveted together. The response was to go with the rule of thumb for determining length, plans are guidelines. So I measured the thickness of the material and added 1.5 times the rivet diameter to get the rivet length, then rounded up. A little long is better than a little short, provided the rivet doesn’t cleve over.
I haven’t actually finished this step yet, as I don’t have a long enough flush rivet set to clear the forward bulkhead. I’ve ordered one from Aircraft Spruce and it should hopefully be here by the weekend.
Additional wiring for antennae pass through a snap-bushing on the aft deck.