I dimpled the skins and stiffeners in preparation for riveting.
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| The floppiness of the left elevator skin makes it difficult to work with, to put it lightly. |
Backriveting the elevators went pretty much the same as on the rudder. The only challenge was getting the aftmost rivets set since the upper part of the skin needs to be bent out of the way for the rivet gun to fit. Since I don't have three hands I ended up holding the stiffener and bottom half of the skin flush against the backrivet plate with one hand, nudging the top part of the skin out of the way with my head, and operating the rivet gun perpendicular to the lower skin and stiffener.
This method worked for the most part, but one of the outboard stiffeners on the left elevator gave me the most trouble for some reason.
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| Hmph, well obviously that won't do. |
I tried drilling it out and retrying a couple times, but I just couldn't get a decent shop head formed. By the third time drilling it out the hole had gotten significantly misshapen.
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| :( |
It's not the end of the world, but I'll have to order an oops rivet kit to fix this one. The rest of the riveting went alright.
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| Lower half done... |
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| ...followed by the upper half. |
