And then there was the right wing........

All this recent work on the left wing spar was very rewarding for me. It proved that I could still rivet without destroying everything, and that my thought processes were still pretty much in tact as far as doing things in the correct order and using the correct method was concerned.

Then my attention turned back toward the right wing spar, and I realized that I had a lot of work cut out for me this morning.Basically, I needed to start with those three lousy inboard tank attach nut plates - you know - the same ones that I had to redo several times on the left wing spar, that resulted in several dings and multiple attempts to set the rivets. Needless to say I was not looking forward to this today at all.

Last night I managed to countersink the rivet holes for the nut plates, and I also remembered to use my gorilla tape to cover up the edges of the spar doubler to prevent the dings I experienced before. As you can see from this next photo, I was not taking any chances this time:

What happened next was just like the nightmare I experienced before. A slip of the bucking bar here, incorrect pressure on the flush head of the rivet gun there, and before you know it I had attempted to reset about 6 rivets, and destroyed two nut plates trying to drill them out. Oh, for the benefit of those builders that may read this to try to figure out how this is done, here are some details:

The nutplates to use for this are K1000-3, which are the nut plates used for ALL of the tank attach bolts. The rivets are AN426AD3-4, and for the large bolt hole you use a #13 drill bit followed by a #12 reamer. The rivet holes are enlarged using the #40 drill bit. The written plans do not tell you anything about these rivets, but trust me, you want to set these nut plates BEFORE you rivet the inboard ribs to the spar. It is difficult enough to set these rivets, let alone trying to do it if those ribs are in the way.

You find the details in the following plan diagram/sections:
DWG 16A (Which is the fuel tank diagram)
Section CC
Detail A

Detail A incorrectly labels the diagram as the main spar web, when in fact it is the bottom FLANGE of the main spar - not the web. Once you get the orientation of the diagram figured out it starts to make some sense.  

Anyway, after all that, and remembering to use the variable speed trigger on my rivet gun to SLOWLY slam these rivets down using the corner of my fat man bucking bar, I was able to set the rivets to all the nutplates. I swear that these have to be the worst things in the build that I have had to do thus far. I'm glad they are done, but I know there are other difficult areas of this project that will have to be overcome. One step at a time. here is the pic of the finished nut plates:

And then back to the left wing, I decided to cleco the aileron gap seal and the flap support bracket to the rear spar to see how they line up. There is  section on the inboard section of the flap support that needs to be trimmed away to account for the taper of the inboard spar doubler. This leaves a rivet hole in question because trimming the bracket in this area does not leave enough edge distance for the AN470 rivet that goes there. I may install it per the plans anyway unless my research finds that other builders who did this have experienced failure of the bracket around this rivet hole.