Back riveting the flaps

The plans just call for the aft two rivets to be back riveted. Why not back rivet the whole top skin? Anyone done this.

Ken

Probably Intended

I think this is one of those places where Vans expects the builder to know this can / should be done.

$0.02 FWIW.

Good luck and congrats on your progress!

Cheers!
Mike

Which riveting technique you use is just that……technique.

If you’re referring to page 21-09 fig 3 you’ll notice that the bottom flange has two cut outs to allow for a backriveting set to access those two rivets on the top flange. I believe the reasoning is that it would be difficult to buck those last two rivets in limited space. You could figure out a way to back rivet all of them. I just bucked the rest and they turned out ok. Don’t try and muscle the rib over to use a regular backriveting set to access the rest. It won’t end well.

mc607 said:

Don’t try and muscle the rib over to use a regular backriveting set to access the rest. It won’t end well.

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I concur. I've given up back-riveting except in cases where I can completely guarantee I can hold the set exactly perpendicular to the surface. I've drilled out too many slanted rivets that I tried to back-rivet with the hand-held back-rivet bucking bar.