Squeezing is Killing Me!

[Skybolt Al]

I just finished hand squeezing all the dimples in the wing ribs and rear spars and my hands and forearms are killing me. My question is, is there this much squeezing on the fuselage to justify a pneumatic squeezer.

Ouch!

[Radomir]

Pneumatic squeezer is worth its weight in gold.. You CAN'T have mine... I won't give it up.. ever..

[Geico266]

Originally Posted by Radomir

Pneumatic squeezer is worth its weight in gold.. You CAN'T have mine... I won't give it up.. ever..

Yep!

Additional letters inserted here.

[Auburntsts]

I have a Cleaveland MainSqueeze hand squeezer and its not bad, but my pnuematic gets the most use by far--highly recommend one. But I rarely use either to dimple. For the majority of my dimpling I use my DRDT in-place of a c-frame.

[N941WR]

By the time I was finished I could crush small cars with my bare hands!

I set every rivet I could reach on my slow build with my Avery's squeezer. Only wimps use those fancy pneumatic squeezer thingies.

BTW, I would rather buy a second rivet gun before I bought a pneumatic squeezer. That way I would have both a 3x & 2x gun. Then, maybe I would look at one of those newfangled devices.

PS. I got to the point where I could squeez 470's single handed by the end of the project. I'm not sure that is still the case, two years later.

[Mel]

If you took every tool in my shop, the pneumatic squeezer would be the last one to leave!

[mikehoover]

Also, a pneumatic cleco tool is a great thing to have when clecoing all of those wing skins. I broke down and bought one after my wings were done. Felt like I had tennis elbow in both arms. It was great to have while building the fuse! Sorry Bill, I wimped out.

[Brantel]

I would never build an RV without a pneumatic squeezer! The best luxury tool I ever bought for the build. The second best was the DRDT-2 which I sold after I had everything dimpled and recovered 90% of my cost to make it!

[jtrollin]

I have finished my tail cone and am quite far in to my wings now and still have yet to see the need for a pneumatic squeezer, in fact I have stayed away from one because most the "extra" holes people complain about have been because of the pneumatic squeezer. I put my "Main Squeeze" from cleaveland in a vice for most the squeezing I do and I just use the rivet gun for the rest.

[Steve]

With forearms like the ones you'll get from building, you won't need to wear a VAF t-shirt to ID yourself. Just be sure to operate the equipment with the other arm every now and then; else you'll be posting on the "heavy wing" forums in 3 years.