Hey folks! While riveting the gussets to my 14 firewall everything seemed to be going smoothly. Plans called for AD4-7 which seemed to be a tad on the long side, but I didn't want to veer off the plans too much in a critical area and I am using a pneumatic squeezer. After setting the rivets on my first gusset I noticed what appeared to be multiple cracks on the rivets 45 degrees from the shanks and the shop heads seemed rough. I've attached a bunch of pictures (I used flash the highlight the roughness:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/BfeeyiGycqroHaVV8
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Vf3SitYeWByBxgNz6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mcfWMWBVaXWfQc2q6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/6SpDrEGieQcongHE7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/1Tfxek3XJuuZqTVu9
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QrWBcSy6UBda1Guz7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3bHmNGFJC1fu4mL6A
On the thousands of rivets that I have set on the plane so far, I have never experienced this issue. I did some more digging and found that it could be a bad batch of rivets. I found that builders in the past have experienced similar issues with rivets marked NR on the manufactured head. I pulled out some rivets marked P to see if this would make a difference. After setting these rivets there was no visible cracking and smooth finish:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/BPzpspJ9oXcPPAjo8
I gave a call to vans with the pictures I took and they said given the thickness of the material I would likely cause more damage removing them, so it would probably be best to leave the majority untouched, however for the next gusset I should order a new batch of rivets. I'm still concerned with the rivets in the first gusset. The mil-spec says:
Cracks in driven heads (1) which fall within a circle which is concentric with and 1.10 times the nominal shank diameter, or (2) intersecting cracks, or (3) five or more cracks
As far as I can tell (1) the cracks do not fall within the 0.1375 radii (2) the cracks are all 45 degrees of the shank and only 2-3 intersect (same with potentially five or more cracks) (3) out of the 24 rivets only 3-5 might have 5 or more, but it's hard to tell. Now I really don't know what to do... As far as I can tell the majority fall within the mil-spec, but I really don't like cracked rivets. If I remove them I'll probably do more damage than good. I could completely reorder that side of the firewall, but that'll take time. Curious what everyone thinks. Thanks!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/BfeeyiGycqroHaVV8
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Vf3SitYeWByBxgNz6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mcfWMWBVaXWfQc2q6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/6SpDrEGieQcongHE7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/1Tfxek3XJuuZqTVu9
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QrWBcSy6UBda1Guz7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3bHmNGFJC1fu4mL6A
On the thousands of rivets that I have set on the plane so far, I have never experienced this issue. I did some more digging and found that it could be a bad batch of rivets. I found that builders in the past have experienced similar issues with rivets marked NR on the manufactured head. I pulled out some rivets marked P to see if this would make a difference. After setting these rivets there was no visible cracking and smooth finish:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/BPzpspJ9oXcPPAjo8
I gave a call to vans with the pictures I took and they said given the thickness of the material I would likely cause more damage removing them, so it would probably be best to leave the majority untouched, however for the next gusset I should order a new batch of rivets. I'm still concerned with the rivets in the first gusset. The mil-spec says:
Cracks in driven heads (1) which fall within a circle which is concentric with and 1.10 times the nominal shank diameter, or (2) intersecting cracks, or (3) five or more cracks
As far as I can tell (1) the cracks do not fall within the 0.1375 radii (2) the cracks are all 45 degrees of the shank and only 2-3 intersect (same with potentially five or more cracks) (3) out of the 24 rivets only 3-5 might have 5 or more, but it's hard to tell. Now I really don't know what to do... As far as I can tell the majority fall within the mil-spec, but I really don't like cracked rivets. If I remove them I'll probably do more damage than good. I could completely reorder that side of the firewall, but that'll take time. Curious what everyone thinks. Thanks!