Rolling leading edges

[woxofswa]

When I built my rudder and rolled its leading edge, I had a nice tight edge where the rivets were spaced tightly together, but a little pillowing where they weren't. I solved that by inserting extra rivets in between so they were all matched and ended up with a nice edge.

Now I am doing my elevator leading edges and have found the same pillowing problem. As I was preparing to drill extra rivets between the first set and bemoaning that they would design the rivets so far apart, it dawned on me that the issue was strictly cosmetic and once assembled might be impossible to be seen anyway and therefore be a wasted effort.

I don't have delusion of winning best in show, but I am trying to stick to reasonable show plane standards, therefore I seek the advice of the braintrust.
Should I run the extra rivets to tighten the edge or ignore something that will never be seen?
Thanks in advance.

 

[flyeyes]

Should I run the extra rivets to tighten the edge or ignore something that will never be seen?
Thanks in advance.

Ummm... the second one ;-)

Seriously though, if you've got enough roll on these it shouldn't be an issue. When rolled properly, the pop rivets are holding negligible tension--the skins should just kind of sit there even without the rivets in place.

If they are pillowing (and I'm assuming that I have this visualized properly) then you haven't rolled them enough.

On my RV-8, I used the broom handle, but wound up doing the last bit by hand.