So here is a shot of me with rivet gun in hand, ear muffs on head. I used my close quarter dimpling tool that I have raved about so much in previous posts to dimple the stiffener holes in the rudder skin, because trying to get to these with the C frame was too difficult. As you moved closer to the bend in the rudder the skin would start to lift up as you pull back on the other side of the skin to access the hole and provide enough room for the hammer to strike the ram on the C frame tool. This would basically form a dimple that is not perpendicular to the rudder surface, which would cause the rivet not to seat correctly. So, to avoid that little problem, I switched to the close quarter tool, which, as you can see, leaves the skin flat on the table for the most part.
Note the ear muffs. I will continue to wear these instead of the individual foam type in each ear when I am working in the winter time, because I found out that these suckers really keep your ears warm!
And here is a shot of my little helper.... My youngest son came out to help steady the rudder skin while I dimple these last several leading edge holes. The project thus far is "almost" a family affair, in that both boys have helped me with various things along the way so far, but the wife won't go near it. That is OK however, because she knows how I can get when things don't go smoothly from time to time, and so I guess that makes her the smart one of the bunch for remaining a casual observer to the whole thing so far! :) As long as she can still get her car in the garage then she is happy, and I am happy with that as well.
Here is a close up of a finished dimple closest to the leading edge of the rudder. The round circle impressions are somewhat normal during the dimpling process, and are made from the dimple die edges that just touch the surface during the dimpling process. These will vanish from sight when the skin is prepped, primed, and painted. Notice the other two dimples above it that were created using the C frame tool. The dimples are created from the same dimple dies, so they should look similar to each other.
Here is shot of the close quarter tool from Cleaveland Tools. screwed onto the edge of the table, with the female dimple die inserted at the tip. The male counterpart is in the rivet set holder from the C frame, which conveniently fits into the rivet gun. Just always have to remember to turn down the air pressure on the gun when you do this. It does not take much effort to set the dimple - about a second or less with light taps on the gun. The rudder is made of .020 thick aluminum, which basically means it is almost thinner than a pop can! Have to be careful with it. Funny, I can pull up to 6.5 G maneuvers in the airplane when finished, and it goes together with aluminum that is thinner than a pop can - simply amazing! Of course, that is where the stiffeners come into play too.
The next pic down below is of the skin placed over the close quarter tool. The hardest part about working with this tool is finding that little hole in the die at the end of it by moving the skin around until you locate it. I have developed a "very technical" procedure - NOT - - for doing this that involves eyeballing where the bar is attached to the table. Then I line up the hole in the skin with the location of the bar, and carefully slide the skin over the top of the bar,without letting it touch anything, until I start seeing the bar appear through the holes in the skin. Then I carefully find the end of the bar through the desired hole in the skin, and slide it back slightly until I see the hole from the dimple die line up with the hole in the skin. Then the rivet gun goes into the hole to lock everything in place.
I also perform another ritual after having messed up my HS skin a bit when I did not get the hole lined up correctly. You can really mess up a skin if you are not careful with this, so patience is key here. The ritual is that once the rivet gun is in place, I gently tug on the skin to verify that it does not move at all. This means that the skin is correctly positioned over the female dimple die, and the male die is properly seated through the skin and into the female dimple die.
This pic also demonstrates why I needed a helper. The HS skins and the VS skins were short enough to fit between the legs of my long craft table, but the rudder is much longer, for lots of aerodynamic and flight performance reasons that I will not go into right now. You can see the left edge of the rudder jsut touching the left leg of the table. I had my son steady the skin here and ensure that it would not contact the table leg while I created the dimple. Whose big foot is that under the table? Hmmmmmm. Looks like a teenager foot to me!
Here is a pic showing the inside of the skin where the LE dimple was created. The scratches in this area around the dimple are from the scotch brite pad I had to use to debur these holes, since I could not fit my deburing tool inside there. The scratches are not as pronounced as they appear here - the light reflected off the skin, making them appear more dramatic than they really are. Only light scuffing was needed to debur the hole. As for appearance, the inside of the skin will be primed, so the rest of this area is going to get scratched up shortly anyway, in preparation for priming. Just needed to get the hole deburred first so I could form the dimple.
This next pic is testament to my horribly un-level garage floor. Another hard lesson learned was to ensure that the table legs are firmly planed on the floor. Since I basically have no level surface at all in my entire garage, I needed to shim the table legs in a couple of places to ensure a solid, stable work surface.
And finally, a shot that shows just how wintery it is outside, while I continue to slave away in the bitter cold. I call this little mountain Mt. Bryan, located just off the edge of my driveway. Come on spring!!!! Time to head back out to the garage.... almost 60 degrees outside - lovin it!
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