Question on Pg 13-03 - Steps 2-5

[uuacallis]

Good Evening All,
I had taken about a one year break on construction due to a nagging shoulder injury which has finally been repaired and I am now finally trying to get going.

Anyways, I was on Page 13-03 and it has you riveting the angles to the spar itself.

The question is does it matter from what side you rivet for these?

Meaning, I have it laying so that the forward portion of the wing is down and the rear portion is up. So do I rivet them all from this angle or should I flip them over.

Thanks,
Adam

[uuacallis]

Guys,
I have this massive box of LP4-3 rivets that I am using to rivet this fancy airplane together and I noticed when I worked on the empennage kit that almost every hole had to be drilled out to make the rivets fit into place. At the time the boards said that it was likely just a bad punch from the factory.

So I figured that my wing kit would not suffer from this, unfortunately again today when I attempted to rivet the angles on 13-03 I realized I had to literally drill every hole with my #30 drill bit to enable me to get these rivets to fit.

Any ideas what I could be doing completely wrong that is requiring this level of drilling work?

thanks,
Adam

[DHeal]

Most of my rivets went in without the need to drill. I frequently used an awl to gently "encourage" the line-up/round-up of a tight hole pair. I lightly used a drill on maybe ten percent of my rivet holes.

[Phantom30]

Originally Posted by uuacallis

Guys,
I have this massive box of LP4-3 rivets that I am using to rivet this fancy airplane together and I noticed when I worked on the empennage kit that almost every hole had to be drilled out to make the rivets fit into place. At the time the boards said that it was likely just a bad punch from the factory.

So I figured that my wing kit would not suffer from this, unfortunately again today when I attempted to rivet the angles on 13-03 I realized I had to literally drill every hole with my #30 drill bit to enable me to get these rivets to fit.

Any ideas what I could be doing completely wrong that is requiring this level of drilling work?

thanks,
Adam

Adam,

The purist would have you use an awl or whatever..I think most of us just gently used a #30 drill as you have found to get the rivets to cooperate😎

[Alex Edwards]

I used a straight flue ream in about 30% of the holes. If the rivet go through the hole in each of the parts separably then it is an alignment issue and often adding more clecos gets things to line up better so that you dont need to drill or ream.

[BigJohn]

My best friend was an old tapered ice pick. Almost never needed a drill.

[rvbuilder2002]

Originally Posted by Alex Edwards

If the rivet go through the hole in each of the parts separably then it is an alignment issue and often adding more clecos gets things to line up better so that you dont need to drill or ream.

Checking the rivets in single holes is a very good test for confirming if hole diameters and rivet diameters are within spec.

Often times the slight misalignment that cause difficult insertion of the rivets is caused be parts not being fully straightened (by fluting).

[alexe]

Adam,

It is not anusual to have holes punched undersize. For example, one of my wing spars was punched undersize, requiring the reaming of each hole. The other wing spar was perfect. I assume this is due to worn tooling used in manufacture.

Try a rivet into ONE hole on each panel, spar, rib, etc. prior to deburring and assembly. Generally, if one hole is undersize, the entire part will be the same. If it's undersize, open it up with the appropriate size reamer. Not a big deal if you check up front before assembly.

As mentioned, once the undersize hole issue is dealt with, a proper size punch or ice pick will help eliminate any subsequent alignment issues during assembly.

Alex