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Hmmmm I wonder....

Mike, the exploding rivets are indeed interesting, there was a lot of exotic technology used in some of the WWII era aircraft.

I stumbled on, and can not re-find, a video of a bucking bar for the inside of a horizontal stabilizer aft spar. It had all the rivets on one side bucked with a sliding bucking bar. The bar had a lower piece with a channel that slid over the set rivets, a spring to press the anvil side to the upper rivets and it was pulled through the structure with a cord/wire. It was pulled over an open hole until it hit an unset rivet to get it in the correct position, then acted like a backing plate as the rivet in the correct position was pushed into place and set with a regular rivet gun.

I "thought" it was for a C47/DC3 restoration project but have not been able to find it again.

This stimulated the design gene and I have often though about a spring loaded axial tool that a novice could use to both hold the parts together on one side and a spring loaded anvil would serve the same purpose as your hand, allowing the tungsten bar (anvil) to slightly rebound when impacted with the rivet gun. This could allow nicely set skin rivets solo with two hands extended into a cavity.
 
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