Jason came over for a visit today and reviewed my work on the aft fuse. We talked about some of the wiring runs and some of the more challenging rivets. His comment in the write up of “very high quality” was really encouraging. We also looked over the QB wings and fuse and he gave me some great advice while also pointing out some issues. There is a lack of deburring on the wing spar “waffles”, which I emailed Vans about. Also a couple of scratches and notches that I’ll need to debur.
Later in the day, I went to work riveting a few rivets that I had found to be difficult on the aft fuse, and had left until after I had talked to Jason. These rivets were instructed by the j-channel, and when I set them using the foot of my I long bar, the rivets had a tendency to cleave over. Jason offered a couple of simple suggestions, including taping my other bucking bar to increase mass and center the rivet along the center of mass. This worked great!
Unfortunately I ended up cracking dimples on two rivets, when I stupidly set the rivet while it was not completely square with the holes. For some reason, a alignment issue caused the rivets to not sit squarely in the hole, and instead of investigating and perhaps reeming the hole, I set the rivet. This caused the rivet to transfer stress to the bulkhead flange and crack the edge of the dimple. Really stupidly, I did it twice, on different bulkheads. I didn’t detect the first one until after setting the second rivet. I emailed Vans asking for advice, and went to bed feeling frustrated.
