Bottom wing skin riveted

30 Oct 2004 Bottom wing skin riveted

Emmett came over and helped me close up the wings. It was a lot more work than I had expected. Took us from about 09:00 to 17:30 with a 1:30 lunch break. Plus I had a couple more rivets to finish the next day (today). It turned out quite well, with only about 3-4 little boo-boos. OK, there was one kind of nasty one where the bucking bar slipped out of place. My bad. That’s why I wanted to buck – in case anything went wrong, I wanted it to be my fault! What I did learn is that driving hundreds of rivets perfectly is *very hard*. I’m really glad the only big skin I had to do on the QB was on the bottom of the wing. If I catch anyone looking under there…

One thing I did learn is that if you can buck and drive the rivet yourself, without a helper, it goes slower, but it is easier to make sure the bucking bar is placed properly. You can feel your own pressure on the rivet gun to make sure you are on a rivet, not a cleco or something else.