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  #11  
Old 04-28-2015, 09:26 PM
Arvey Fleur's Avatar
Arvey Fleur Arvey Fleur is offline
 
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Default Shorter Rivets...

I used shorter rivets. It does not take much of a shop head to hold a rivet in there. Plenty strong. Should not have to fight it or stand on one foot to squish a rivet, IMO. If you are worried about small-ish shop heads, you can do a test on some scrap material. Rivet 2 scrap pieces together with various shop head sizes then rip em apart and see what happens. I've seen relatively small rivet shop heads on a 747 wing spar. Drilling out a less-than-perfect rivet is prolly worse than leaving it there.
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  #12  
Old 04-29-2015, 08:39 AM
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Rosie & Tuppergal sitting around the pool in St. Lucia, waiting for Sharkbait/Crystal to show up so we can leave for St. Kitts.

I showed Tuppergal the rivet picture, and she has bucked MANY A RIVET. Her response (as were my thoughts) were "It's not pretty but I'd leave it alone". If it REALLY bothers you, put two more in; one on either side. Remember that it's always just FINE to add MORE! Rosie & Tuppergal
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  #13  
Old 04-29-2015, 09:24 AM
Naigool Naigool is offline
 
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Location: Ollon Switzerland
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Talking Same advice

+1 for Scott advice!

Sometimes a pneumatic squeezer yoke will fit well enough to get over the rivet, but when you squeeze the rivet the yoke will hang up on a flange. This will change the angle of the set just enough to damage the rivet.
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  #14  
Old 04-29-2015, 09:27 AM
krw5927 krw5927 is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rosie View Post
Remember that it's always just FINE to add MORE! Rosie & Tuppergal
I don't mean to argue with you Rosie, but perhaps to clarify that your statement is generally true only when minimum edge distance and spacing requirements are satisfied.
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  #15  
Old 04-29-2015, 11:42 AM
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Wunderon Wunderon is offline
 
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Default rivet specs

as referenced in section 5, you only need 0.050 thickness and 0.163 diameter for a 1/8 shop head, so sometimes shortening a rivet can make it a lot easier to drive and still be strong enough.

http://www.vansaircraft.com/public/Specs.htm
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  #16  
Old 04-29-2015, 12:13 PM
Boomer506 Boomer506 is offline
 
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I find myself using a rivet cutter to start the shop head with a shorter rivet. Its not so important to start with 1.5 diameter tall before setting, as it is to have a nice square shop head that is 1.5 dia wide and 0.5 dia tall. You can achieve this with a slightly short rivet to begin with.

Also, the gun and bucking bar seems to give me more control than a squeezer. You can also start the drive lightly, then pull the gun and bar to see how the start is going and adjust your bucking bar position to fight the impending fold before it goes too far.
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  #17  
Old 04-29-2015, 01:13 PM
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Oh, one more suggestion. I had problems with the rib flanges wanting to lift a little off of the bulkhead when I drove the rivets. I got perfect rivets that I still had to drill out because there was a gap between the flange and bulkhead. THAT sucked.

I found some lawn mower fuel line, or windshield washer hose, whatever in my garage. Black rubber hose. I cut a chunk just about the length of the rivet tails and used that when bucking the rivets. It holds the rib flange tight against the bulkhead while driving them. It's a hint I saw here first.
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  #18  
Old 04-29-2015, 02:51 PM
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I don't think the cracking in the rivets is normal. I had a whole bunch of rivets crack like that (10 in a row). I ordered new rivets, problem fixed. Maybe the problem is rivet quality.
I had purchased the rivets initially from Aircraft Spruce. I called them and told them about the problem and they overnighted me new rivets and requested that I send all the old ones back. Turned out the rivets were too "hard." I'm not a metallurgist so I wasn't sure what that meant. I do know that I didn't have a problem with the new rivets.
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  #19  
Old 04-29-2015, 05:38 PM
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s10sakota s10sakota is offline
 
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Thanks for all the replies. The task is complete and it certainly is a PITA.

I did start using slightly shorter rivets with fantastic results. There's probably a couple of rivets that aren't perfect, but like someone mentioned, sometimes having a less that perfect (but acceptable) rivet is far better than the mess it creates by trying to drill it out.

The rivet that was cracked was removed. That I couldn't live with! Moving on...
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  #20  
Old 04-29-2015, 05:46 PM
Smilin' Jack Smilin' Jack is offline
 
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Just a short response,
I had to use a rivet cutter several times as the rivets that were called to be used were in fact too long. Getting the right length sometime only resulted in a shave off the rivets length but it did make a huge difference. As was stated earlier if I ran into a problem of a bent rivet I would end up using the old fashion method of a gun and bucking bar..it always worked the best.

Smilin' Jack
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