I had to drill out a rivet at the intersection of the VS-707 rib, the spar and the skin on tht RV-7 vertical stab. After drilling out the head, I went to tap the back of the rivet out.....BAD move. I bent the tab on the rib (duh...if I had been paying attention, I would have realized what a bad idea this was).
Of course, you can't just bend it back up because it's all rivetted in there and I would have had to bend it through the skin to account for the spring back. My tech counselor and I attempted to straighten it out by tapping on the tab's flange at the bend. Rib cracked. :::sigh:::
So now I had to drill the rib out and get a new rib. Of course, drilling the AN4 rivets attaching it to the spar is difficult because there's not enough room to really get a drill in there to do it. Muffed up one of the holes....enough that I need to drill it out to #12 to make it round again. Also, I now have to use blind rivets there or drill off the whole skin (with the inevitable enlarged holes). Yuck.
I have an e-mail into Vans....I'm sure this will all work itself out, and I've got plenty to do while waiting for parts to come in.
In retrospect, I should have just bent the tab up as much as I could, held it up there by hand and put a flush cherry rivet in there. Better yet, I should have been paying more attention to what I was doing and not bent it in the first place![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
Live and learn.
Of course, you can't just bend it back up because it's all rivetted in there and I would have had to bend it through the skin to account for the spring back. My tech counselor and I attempted to straighten it out by tapping on the tab's flange at the bend. Rib cracked. :::sigh:::
So now I had to drill the rib out and get a new rib. Of course, drilling the AN4 rivets attaching it to the spar is difficult because there's not enough room to really get a drill in there to do it. Muffed up one of the holes....enough that I need to drill it out to #12 to make it round again. Also, I now have to use blind rivets there or drill off the whole skin (with the inevitable enlarged holes). Yuck.
I have an e-mail into Vans....I'm sure this will all work itself out, and I've got plenty to do while waiting for parts to come in.
In retrospect, I should have just bent the tab up as much as I could, held it up there by hand and put a flush cherry rivet in there. Better yet, I should have been paying more attention to what I was doing and not bent it in the first place
Live and learn.