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Marred skin with flush set

digidocs

Well Known Member
Hi guys and gals,

I've been flush riveting away on my horizontal stabilizer skins, but my flush set has also been marking its territory:

skin.jpg


I think that ultimately these marks won't matter as they'll all be covered with paint, but that do bother me a bit in the meantime. Is there anything I can/should do? I tried running the flush set over my scotchbrite wheel, but didn't seem much improvement.

Thanks!
 
One technique

You can score the protective blue plastic with a soldering gun and save two inch wide strips to use, or use clear packing tape, to hold the rivets and serve as a protective shield over a row of rivets when riveting
 
Clear packing tape

I had the exact same problem and it drove me nuts. Local builder Bruce Hill gave me a tip to use clear packing tape (about 2-3" strips work well) to cover the rivet(s) before setting. The tape also helps in many scenarios to hold the flush rivets in place.

This really helped the quality if my riveting, and not a single blemish on my wings. :)
 
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Carpet tape

I use the really thin carpet tape. It's sticky on both sides (obviously) so the set doesn't move. Works great. Replace as necessary.
 
Worry not

It will come right off with Nuvite if you plan to polish. (Done it)
It will come right off with scotchbrite if you plan to paint. (more aggressive than Nuvite)
Don't waste time preventing this minor scuff.
 
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put blue painters tape on your flush rivet set, problem goes away, it does wear down so you have to periodically replace it
 
+1 on the blue painters tape. Since I use it to hold lines of rivets in place, anyway, the painters tape is quite handy. I'm sure duct tape, carpet tape etc... will perform well too.
 
You can get some rivit tape from suppliers works great.

+1 on rivet tape. It saves the skins from marring, and the rivet heads don't cut thru it like they do with packaging and masking tape. And you can reuse strips of the rivet tape quite a few times before it looses stickiness.
 
+1 on the blue painters tape. Since I use it to hold lines of rivets in place, anyway, the painters tape is quite handy. I'm sure duct tape, carpet tape etc... will perform well too.

+2 on the blue painters tape. I also use the blue painters tape on universal head rivets but with 3 layers.
 
I had the same problem. I put electrical tape on my rivit gun and it worked great. I also used electrical tape for the back riviting. Much cheeper, reusable and works perfectly!!! :D

ps: Electrical tape also does not leave any residue behind. It's very cheap and doesn't take a lot of time to put some on your rivit gun head.
 
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I've used the blue electrical tape on basically the whole kit.

I'm finding it particularly useful on skins (wing, etc.) where I need to feel the correct unset shop head with the bucking bar.

With the blue tape, I can push on the back of the rivet with the bucking bar and watch the head push up a little into the tape (without falling out of the hole).
Then, I know I'm on the right rivet.

I place the flush set on the head to push the rivet back in, and then shoot.

Works great, and is cheap and plentiful in the aviation aisle of the big box stores.
 
Thanks to everyone for all of the responses. It sounds like all kinds of tape in all kinds of places is the answer!

David
 
Just riveted on a skin last weekend with a probably one of the best riveters in the Vans community. It's normal. If you're painting the airplane don't worry about it. Either way, it'll polish right off. Taping the rivets will just create more work for yourself.
 
Hi David,

I use the tape, but another thing that I've done is to sand the flush set with fine (1500 grit) sandpaper.
Just chuck it in drill and spin it on the sandpaper. You can get a mirror finish on the flush set with this methood. A drill press is handier if you have one.
 
I upped the gun pressure 5 psi

I upped the gun pressure about 5 psi, and it took fewer hits (single blip on the gun) and +90% of this marking went away.

Rick
 
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