Over the weekend, I started on the landing lights. The holes for the lights are already cut into the leading edge of the wing, but annoyingly the holes for the landing light mount are not dimpled. In a slow build, these holes could be dimpled with the DRDT-2, but at this stage of assembly, I need a custom tool to reach the holes. I picked up a dimpler that works with a pop-rivet gun. The dies are cut so that a nail can be passed through the center of each, and inserted in a pop rivet gun. The gun pulls the dimple dies together to form the dimple.
Anyway, I got started by dimpling the brackets and attach strips, along with the 20 nutplates.
Then I primed the parts, going for a thicker coat on the brackets which will be partially visible inside the light cove.
Per the plans, I also painted the inside of the light cove with my white epoxy primer. I’m just trying to keep the color consistent, and not really worried about final paint at this stage. My paint gun *just* fit inside the lightening hole in the outboard rib, so I was able to paint the sides of the ribs, and the inside of the skin.
The next day, with the paint dried I riveted the nutplates to the brackets and attach strips. I used my new “main squeeze” hand squeezer for all the rivets, securing the squeezer in the vice and holding the work. This went quite well, and I definitely love the squeezer. It requires very little force to squeeze the rivet, and is compatible with all of my existing yokes.
Your new squeezer looks like a good piece of kit