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More Riveting Practice

Tonight I went back into the shop and worked on my practice kit. This first small project focused on the different types of rivets I will use on the RV-8, drilling the holes, spacing, etc. Essentially I connected 3 pieces of aluminum to each other with the different rivets. 1 piece of angle aluminum to a sheet of flat aluminum and that piece connected to another flat sheet.

The types of rivets I used were universal, flush and blind rivets of different lengths. Each of these used a different method of "squeezing" the rivets to form a solid, strong connection. The universal and flush rivets use the pneumatic squeezer while the blind rivets used a hand squeezer. Again, the idea with this kit is get familiar with each type of rivet and its method of squeezing it to put parts together. Additionally, you want to learn on this practice kit and make your mistakes there. Yeah.

I still need to practice holding the Tungsten bucking bar to the tail of the rivet while putting the rivet gun on the head of the rivet. I put the bucking bar on the work table, then placed the parts to be riveted together on top of the bucking bar. This pushed the head of the rivet out of the drilled hole in the sheet metal and when I applied the rivet gun it smashed the rivet, but on the tail side it flattened the tail to be smooth with the bottom of the sheet metal. This is incorrect. You're supposed to hold the rivet gun to the rivet head and push it flat against the part (sheet metal) and the bucking bar on the tail needs to not have too much pressure. I have pictures to show what I mean.



If you look at the top picture you will see the head of the universal rivet sticking out, above the sheet metal and the bucking bar is under the part. The second picture shows the tails of several rivets on the other side of the 2 parts. From the third rivet from the left on the angled aluminum piece, you can see how the tails of the rest of the rivets are flush with the sheet metal. These too are wrong. Look at the row of rivets in the front row (closer to the camera) and you will see the "shop heads" of a correctly formed rivet.


Here are the rest of the pictures just for fun:







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