Nothing too fancy or too difficult this morning. Just setting a bunch of the small 3-3.5 sized skin rivets. I thought about using the pneumatic squeezer for this job but that too is quite heavy and having to set this many rivets is quite fatiguing just with a hand squeezer let alone the big pneumatic version. I could buck them all but the small rivets are easy to tip over and you have to be very careful with the gun when you are setting this sized rivet. The squeezers are nice because they give you consistent results every time. Once you have the squeezer set adjusted you know you are getting the same result every time so that's why I just used that instead of bucking them.

So 50 or so small rivets attaching the skin to the spar and then just the PITA rivets on the aft end of the skin where it rests on the outside ribs. Those 4 rivets presented a bit of a challenge because there was not enough room in there to get even the no-hole yoke in there (initially). On top of that, there's not enough space in there to even get a descent sized bucking bar to buck those rivets.

I ended up using a combination of bucking and squeezing to set those four. The bucking bar I used is pictured below, very thin and it was actually pretty hard to get the rivet to even set just a little bit. That actually worked ok as I was able to initially buck the rivet in place to where it had expanded enough to hold itself in place and by that point that had created a big enough space that I could finish off the rivet with the no-hole yoke using the hand squeezer. So sometimes that's an option, start with a bucking bar and finish off with a squeezer.

Last steps for this elevator are to install the rod end bearings (2), finish installing the AN hardware to secure the counterweight and finally to roll the leading edges and pop-rivet them in place. I had to order a bag of AN960-10 washers from Spruce because I seem to have misplaced them, those get used under the nylon nuts to hold the counterweight in place. All of this can be done at just about any time so I am going to set this elevator aside and start on the left elevator asap because........

Because I got the notice from the mothership today that after nearly 14 months of waiting, my wing kit is shipping finally! So.... I need to hustle to get the parts for the left elevator prepped and primed so that I can take down my 8'x8'x8' paint booth to make room for the crate. As I mentioned in another update it's the middle of winter here (January) and I've already taken up one side of the garage with the build and we want to be able to put at least one car inside on cold nights or when we get a snow storm. So the rush is on to get this done before the ABF semi-trailer shows up next week to drop off the two crates.

Nice to be making some real progress for once.