forward or back rivet top wing skins?

[prkaye]

The plans suggest the option of back-riveting the top wing skins in place. What have most people here done, and found to be easier/better ?

[Jim P]

Either way. I did my -7 wings with a backrivet. Need the Avery joggled backrivet tool, but it worked great. Really easy.

Jim

[Brantel]

Tried it with an inexperienced person holding the back rivet bar and it did not work out. Did about three or four and they were not comming out flush. Switched to the old fashioned method and never looked back.

I used the long double offset back riveting tool from Avery's and the large round, flat faced bar from Avery's that is suppose to be for this purpose.

I don't know if the inexperience was the problem or that this just is no good but others I know and others here have stated that they tried it and it did not work for them as well.

Surely someone had success at this for all the special tools to be created and the note actually got put in the work instructions from Van's. I would like to be enlightened as well on how to get this to work because I love the smoothness of a backriveted skin when done on a solid flat plate, if you could get similar results with the handheld version, I would love to do it that way.

[GAHco]

I shot all my RV6 wing rivets in a conventional manner.

I did this because I wanted to use the squeezer to close the top skins trailing edge.

It came out beautiful.

As always proceed with due caution, if you don't you can get ding's, and "dangs".

[bullojm1]

Phil,
I backriveted all the top skin rivets (except the ones I could squeeze). I would definitely do this again because my skins are smooth as smooth can be. The only thing I would do differently would be to conventionally shoot/buck the skin-main spar rivets. If you backrivet this and the guy with the backrivet bucking bar doesn't hold it exact, you will get a slight lip between the main skins and the leading edge/tank skins. Ask me how I know!

[RScott]

Like Brian, I started out back riveting & switched to the conventional method. I had both experienced and inexperienced people helping at different times and the regular method worked best with both.

[RV7Factory]

Despite being advised not to, I attempted to back-rivet the top wing skins. Even with a strong bucker holding the back rivet bar tight to the skins, I didn't like the results. The shop heads seemed a little small (rivet being pushed out of the hole instead of in), and the long double-offset back-rivet set seemed to absorb a lot of the gun's energy. I quickly switched to the standard shoot and buck method, and like Brantel, I never looked back. I'm sure the cause of the problem was my inexperienced helper, as surely it couldn't have been anything I had done .

[doug_rv7]

I just finished my top skins. I used the swivel head mushroom set (Part RSMS75) from Cleaveland. The skins look great. I'm planning to do the bottom skins in the same fashion.

[Mike S]

Originally Posted by Brantel

Tried it with an inexperienced person holding the back rivet bar and it did not work out.

As far as I know, back riveting is usually done with a flat plate laying on a table/bench. Not hand held--------

Rivet tape comes in handy here, as does a BIG back rivet plate. Mike is 18"x22", set into the building table, flush with the carpet padding on top.

With a setup like this, you can do the riveting solo, and do large sections at a time.

Mike

[prkaye]

The method we are talking about here is the one suggested in the plans, where they suggest back riveting having your helper hold a large bucking bar over the rivet on the outside of the skin.