Wrong rivets in wing kit

[larrynew]

During inventory of my wing kit, I found a mistake that I thought others might want to know about. Bag 420 should contain .7 pounds of AN426AD3-3.5 rivets. My bag has 3-3 rivets instead.

I don't think I would have caught the 1/32 difference until I had started riveting and wondered why all my rivets were just a little short. I was adding the leftover bits from the empennage kit to the containers of wing stuff and noticed the rivets didn't match. I had to break out the digital micrometer to confirm it.

Hopefully, it was a one-time mistake. I wouldn't have posted this but last night after discovering it, I kept imagining a giant hopper of rivets at Van's with the wrong size rivets being poured into 100's of bags. I'll call Van's this morning after they open.

 

[instructor_bill]

Mistakes happen

Mistakes happen. That being said, I find that the way that Vans deals with these problems to be quite impressive.

An order that I placed for some lp4-4 rivets and cs4-4 rivets was filled entirely with cs4-4 rivets. When I called them, they assured me that I could keep the rivets that I had and they would ship out the right ones that day.

A couple days later I had a package of rivets, however I found that these rivets were also cs4-4 rivets, not Lp4-4's. I called back again and they checked their bins. They appeared correctly stocked. I sent them a picture of the rivets that they were claiming to be Lp4-4's next to what I wanted (an Lp4-4)

so the picture showed a cs4-4 and an lp4-4

Again, they shipped me more rivets at no cost to me. I didn't have to ship anything back.

Now, I have a butt load of cs4-4 that I don't have a use for, but also have the rivets that I wanted. Not without some frustration of course, and it was less than convenient, but the problem was solved.

The moral of my story (as in the title) Mistakes happen. Van's commitment to customer service shows in how they deal with these mistakes. They own the mistakes, make a correction, and make no excuses.

 

[Jim P]

Rivets

When I first started, I just made a big order .25 lbs of each rivet size from Aircraft Spruce so you always had sizes on hand and didn't have to go hunting thorugh the little brown bags. Rivets are really cheap so it never hurts to have more on hand.

 

[Jamie Aust]

What I did was to put all the rivets into one place. Emp, wing, fuse all in the same place. I put each size rivet in a used plastic photo can.
Just grab the correct size when needed, in some spots I found that I had to go up one size anyway.

I also removed all content from the brown paper bags and put them into clear zip-lock type lunch bags, so I could see whats inside each one, I also left the bag number ripped off of the brown paper bag inside for later cross ref.

It worked for me so far.