This weekend, I had the right elevator stiffeners and skin prepped for backriveting but no good time to be loud.

So, in between dropping the kids at school and the start of the workday, BAM. 116 perfectly backriveted AN426AD3-3.5 rivets.

After 51 more (on that side), here’s the right elevator bottom stiffeners riveted.

After finishing up the top, I had to stop and admire the work.

Then, on to matchdrilling the right spar assembly and skin. First, they want you to cleco together the tip rib, the counterbalance rib, the counterbalance, and the counterbalance skin. After doing that, I started matchdrilling the lead counterbalance, but immediately broke the drill bit.

It was a solid 30 minutes of measuring and backdrilling from behind, then pounding the drill bit through with a punch. From both sides. It finally come out and I was left with pretty clean holes. After countersinking the counterbalance, I dimpled the skin with a #8 dimple (it’s supposed to be #10).

That’s a pretty good dimple, but it’s not perfect.

Without spending $50 on a #10 dimple die, I decided to cleco the assembly back together and use a flush set to settle the screw a little better.

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I think this turned out great. Next up was rib, spar, and skin prep. I spent another 1.5 hours working on bending the skin, matchdrilling, and then dimpling the end rib, counterbalance rib, spar, and skin. But all I got from all that work was this lousy picture of the skin post dimpling.

3.5 hours today, 116 rivets backriveted.