Trying to attach a leading edge
Sun, Sep 28th 2008
Today started out on the wrong foot. I discovered that all of the counter sinking I had done yesterday wasn't deep enough for the dimples in the leading edge, and the skins would have been lifted off of the spar by about 1/32". Naturally, I noticed after putting half of the clecoes in place, so I removed the clecoes and leading edge of the left wing and countersunk the left wing more. When I finally got the result I was looking for, I clecoed the leading edge assembly in place and got ready to set the 470AD4-7 rivets through the spar that hold the W-408-1L rib in place. The rivets are REALLY close to the W-711-L main rib, so I ground a good portion off of my offset rivet set, then asked Gen if she could buck the rivets for me. We started with the middle rivet, and I smilied it pretty badly. The rivet just didn't seem to want to set, but we got a decent shop head out of it. I wasn't happy with the smiley, but one bad rivet won't crash the plane ;-) Then to number 2- same thing, only worse! Number 3 was going slowly, but OK until the last couple of hits when I mangled the head on that one too! Three strikes, and I'm out! I didn't have any 12" drill bits yet, so I couldn't drill out the bad rivets, so I admitted defeat and called it a day.
