Advice Needed...riveting ding...

Ok... so as I was finishing riveting all the fuselage bulkheads together today... I unfortunately slipped on one of the rivets!

A nice little ding from the rivet set appeared on the bulkhead #3 flange as a result!!





Now, my question is... leave it as is or

#1--> De-rivet it all and build a doubler and rivet again...

#2--> Drill bigger size and put a bigger rivet..

#3 --> Or again, leave it as is because the fuselage is held together with the skin and j-stringers and it probably will never crack... also add this to my condition inspection as a "danger" point!?

What would you recommend?


Thanks

Leave it alone

If you are working on the fuselage and that is the worst you have so far,
you've done very well.
Those are pretty thin and wobbly pieces to rivet with a rivet gun,
I would have used a squeezer on those rivets.
A bigger rivet would make riveting more difficult and achieve nothing.
I think you do not need to loose any sleep over that little smiley face, now or in the future.

Wow - you've got the fuse bulkheads going together and this is the first time you've done that??

Build on - you'll have an almost-perfect airplane....

Thanks for the compliments guys but I won't lie... this isn't my first time doing this...
Worked before as a aircraft sheet metal tech. and now I am an heavy aircraft maintenance tech... Sooooo I am kinda used to work on planes...

But differences is, the ones I work on have much bigger structures and also requires AMM, SRM and engineers to be fixed...
So, not knowing what are the RV9 weakness and strength structurally speaking, I don't wanna take chances and better just ask seeing that these pieces are quite flimsy and thin like you mentionned!

And as for mistakes, don't worry, even with all this experience in the field, you always manage to screw something up...working on your off time a bit tired from work,etc... My biggest mistake for now since starting this kit was to re-skin the left elevator because of a dent I accidentally did while riveting...

As for riveting those with a rivet gun, I actually tried to squeeze them with my hand squeezer and the rivets called seems to be just a little too long so they kinda bend over when I squeeze them... :S Any solution to that? Did you guys use AD470-4-3 instead of the 4-4 called in the manual?

Vans calls out the closest rivet size in most cases, but there are variances. I have ended up using both longer and shorter rivets in locations where I didn't like the official callouts. I had pretty good luck using a pneumatic squeezer on the ones long enough to clinch over, it's easier to keep the dies square to the rivet if you're not trying to apply force at the same time.

Get a pneumatic squeezer - you'll love it!

Leave it alone

I work on the lighter aircraft for a living. Seems to me the way its loaded, if all, is in line with the mark,not across it. If you really want to do something with it, Blend out the damage then make a small angle with the free leg the same width as the formers free leg, and attach it across using three rivets, one either side of the offending fastener. This "repair" will exceed the original because it will close the break in the free leg and stiffen it.

Agree with Andrew, remove any sharp edges/blend lightly and leave it alone.

Issue resolved

Now that the issue has been relsolved I have some light hearted advice.

Next time, take the picture from the other side....
Turn that frown upside down, you know what I mean?
Use a sharpie and paint a couple of eyballs on the rivet and you'll give the smilie face a whole personality.
Everytime you do an inspection that little ding will smile at you and remind you of the advice you got from VAF members