Wing - Left Wing

2004-07-15 - Riveting bottom skins. (3.0 Hrs).

Patricia is out of town, so I have to do the outboard bottom panel by myself. Setting the line of rivets along the rear spar was a real pain. You have to insert a rivet, lean over the front of the wing and reach as far back as you can with the longest bucking bar that you have, find the rivet and get the bucking bar on the rivet, pickup the rivet gun with your other hand, reach as far back as you can with that hand, make sure everything is ready, then pull the trigger. Needless to say, these were not the bet rivets that I have set, but they'll do.

BTW, after I finished with the wing, I watched the episode where they skin the wing on From the Ground UP, and they didn't do this like I did. Instead of riveting the rear spar first, and working forward, they started with the inboard rib, and did one full rib at a time. I think that may have worked a little better, but nonetheless I got it done Van's way in the end.

Hard to get a light in here to take a picture, but it looks like one under-driven rivet, one or two over-driven, and the rest look ok. This is a long reach
This is as far as I got tonight, but the hard rivets are all all done. The left wing is almost done.