VS 702, 704, 705 riveting... first tight squeeze

[jmilton]

Quick question for group... I'm on the fun little spot where VS 702, 704 & 705 all meet. I decided to try my hand at the rivet gun since I couldnt get the squeezer in there. That may have been a mistake as even that is a tight fit...

Long story short I put a couple not so good looking rivets in with both a smily on the manufactured head and a slightly sloppy shop head. After letting that sit while prepping the skin. I decided that while they may be good I really didnt like how they looked and the fact that they would be fairly visible as 3 of the few rivets that are seen after the assembly is done. I drilled one of the 2 culprits out and of course enlarged the hole a bit.

I think now tha I may leave the others alone as this is likely a case of better left in than drilled out. Now that this is too large what kind of oops rivet do I use? It isnt a flush rivet and is a #40 so I need something larger in diameter. Is it possible to use one pop rivet here instead?

Thanks all...

 

[Low & Slow]

Me too

Joshua,

I just got done with that little operation. Don't feel too bad because I did worse than you. I replaced one of those rivets twice, and the other one 4 times before getting a result I was happy with. The first thing I did after fouling them up was to fold the nose rib up to where I had a better shot at the rivet holes. I started out using the squeezer and clinched them. Drilled them out, straightend up the metal, and tried the squeezer again. Got one set right, but the other one just wouldn't go. So I drilled it out and used the gun and bar finally. Used a quick burst, checked progress, then another burst etc. Took four bursts to set it. There are a lot of people on here that know a lot more about this than me, but if your hole is really too big now, the advice will probably be to drill it out to 5/32 and use a # 5 rivet. Good luck!

 

[G-force]

Thats a tough area to shoot...I think its because of how lighweight the structure is, and how difficult it is to hold it secure enough. I also beat the shop head of a couple of them and replaced them. I also had to up one to a -5 after wallowing the hole up. My best advice...clamp the structure the bet you can and have someone else hold it while you set the rivets.

 

[dan]

Have you tried using a longeron yoke on a pneumatic squeezer? Also, I wouldn't hesitate to flex VS-705 out of the way a bit to make it work.

 

[G-force]

Have you tried using a longeron yoke on a pneumatic squeezer? Also, I wouldn't hesitate to flex VS-705 out of the way a bit to make it work.

Wont fit, believe me I tried.

 

[dan]

These new fangled construction techniques are really kinda silly imho. I guess they must have you pop rivet the spars in now?

Imho you should build the skeleton, rivet it, and then drill the skin to the skeleton. Building the skeleton completely aside from the skin means you can flex things a bit when riveting. Much, much easier.

It does make riveting the skin more complicated, though, since you need to peel the skin back to gain bucking access.

Am I off base?

 

[G-force]

The VS skelton is completly riveted before the skin. The problem in this particular joint is I wasnt willing to rivet this joint without the rear spar clecoed to the ribs. The whole **** thing is too flimsey without it, and without the jig like your and other old style ones used. If I had a helper, it probaly could be done. I agree that it is a problem that doesnt look like it should be there...but I think the elimination of the VS jig has created this riveting problem. Even with the ribs and front spar clamped to a workbench, it is still too flimsey to put enough pressure on the factory head to keep the set from jumping and putting smiles on the rivet. Thats the problem I had.

 

[jmbaute]

Me, too...

I was in this same situation about a week ago.

The trick for me was bending the nose rib out of the way a little, then using the rivet gun with the straight set. I drilled out lots of rivets before I hit on this little tidbit (that's what they did in the Orndorff video, too).

My blog on this: http://tinyurl.com/yscw43

 

[dan]

Get that rear spar off there when riveting the joint you're talking about. It'll make life so much easier.

 

[amilder]

I finshed my VS a couple weeks ago. I squeezed those, after flexing the nose rib out of the way. Seemed a lot easier to me than the inner rib/front spar join on the HS... *that's* the one that gave me a headache... Andy

 

[MikeJ 7A]

I finshed my VS a couple weeks ago. I squeezed those, after flexing the nose rib out of the way. Seemed a lot easier to me than the inner rib/front spar join on the HS... *that's* the one that gave me a headache... Andy

Andy, do you recall what yoke you used? Did you put the machine head forward or aft?
MikeJ

 

[amilder]

I'm pretty sure I used the standard 3" yoke, with the manufactured head on the *aft* side of the spar. The nose rib had to be pushed out of the way of the moving set. If I recall, there was very little or no bending the the rib flange involved. Andy

Edit - after looking at it again I realized the moving ram had the universal head set and the flat set was on the fixed side to minimize bending the rib.