Riveting on Attach Angles

[Glenn Patterson]

A couple more thoughts. A veteran builder told us to use cobalt drill bits as they last for ever. Best advice ever. We bought a dozen of the No.30 & 40's and a couple of the other sizes. We bought 3 of each in the 12" length for the common sizes. We have one 40 left and just blew up our last long no.30. The long cobalt bits can take a lot of twisting and torture to get into the most awkward of spots. I think long regular carbon would not take the bending or last anywhere near as long. The cobalts cut aluminum a lot more efficiently than the regular jobber bits. We ordered the bits from Brown Aviation Tools. We bought colbalts for drilling steel when we got into the ironwork.

I don't know what you are using for ear protection. I bought some industrial quality Peltor sound muffs for the shop & they are the best protection. Our company encouraged employees to take home the foam ear plugs for home safety but they are a pain. The super quiet muffs allow us to talk to one another but it makes the work comfortable. The noise of hammering, grinding, compressors & rivet guns all take a toll on hearing. I spent 40 years in industry and when I started the company was fanatical about hearing and eye protection. I left with my hearing intact unlike my dads generation that most retired with hearing aids. The momentary noise may not seem like much but is the accumulation of noise & time that bites.

Glenn
BH727

[Chris In Milwaukee]

In a pinch, I went to my local home store, and they had seven of the wire-sized drill bits I needed. I bought them because I needed them now. But I looked at Brown Tool this morning, and they're half the cost of those at the home store. Looks like I'll be buying a bunch.

[N3UW]

I bought most of my drill bits from Pan American tools. They have great quality bits and are a good price when you buy them by the pack. They also have every size you could ever want.

http://www.panamericantool.com

[Chris In Milwaukee]

Wow, $0.80 apiece for #40 and $0.89 apiece for #30 is a good price from Pan American. Best I've seen yet. Since I needed other stuff, I went back to ACS for them were they were about $1.08 apiece. Made that up in shipping costs, I hope!

[Chris In Milwaukee]

You never realize how much time it takes to pull the plastic off of ribs and attach angles. Spent last night peeling ribs, and deburring edges and holes, and preparing for tonight.

First center rib drilled tonight, getting my system down. The rest should go smoothly. This one will take a little longer because it's the sandwiched root rib, want to make sure everything lines up right.








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[Glenn Patterson]

Chris.
Glad the pricing is good. I would get at least 4 of each of the No.40 & 30 in the 12" length plus one or two of the larger diameter rivet sizes. It is amazing how much torturing they can take. The small ones especially the No.40 can be bent to make holes where no other bit can work.
Glenn

[Chris In Milwaukee]

The more the merrier. And they go down in price as quantity goes up. I'll pick up a bunch of each. The wings aren't going to get any smaller! :-)

[Chris In Milwaukee]

Got the rest of the center ribs drilled tonight and ready for the next phase. Wednesday night will be used to deburr and rivet the rest of the center ribs and stiffening angles. The inboard root rib needs longer rivets than I have on hand (either too short or too long-WTH?), so ACS is sending some more and they should be here Wednesday. The others I have rivets for.

I'm about a month behind where I thought I'd be right now, but can't complain too much if things are moving forward. I'm learning a lot about the structure and the idiosyncrasies of the equipment during assembly. By the time I'm ready to build the production wings, I'll have the process down solid.










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[Chris In Milwaukee]

All done riveting center ribs, with the exception of the stacked root ribs. My rivet order came in from ACS for these, but dang it all if I didn't order "A" rivets instead of "AD" rivets. I'll swing by the A&P tomorrow at lunch and see if I can get enough from him to wrap that up. Only 15 rivets.







It wasn't without fault, however. Get complacent for one second, and the gun will slip off the head and do a number on your work.



Drilled it out, attempted to polish up the marks, but it's just too deep.



I buffed it out some more, and put a new rivet in it. Since this is the test wing, I'm not worried about vibration-based cracks, and I'm going to let it go. This wing will never fly. It will only receive a static load. But it was good practice for learning creative ways to drill out messed up rivet heads. If this was a production wing, I'd replace that angle with a new one.


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[DRLPatrol]

I'm sure this is to late for you, but I'll add it anyway maybe it will help someone. I was working on my false spar today and was wishing I had not put the attach angles on the ribs at each end of the false spar. The flanges of the false spar where going to interfere with the flutes on the rib. It would have been nice to be able to move the angles 1/4" to the rear. My best choice was to remove the angles and reinstall them backwards which moved the spar back almost 1/2". I checked everything I could think of and could not come up with a reason that would hurt anything.

[Chris In Milwaukee]

I actually caught myself early and kept myself from doing that. I did drill the holes, but then said, --Wait! These can't go on yet!-- So I marked it with Sharpie, saying --No angle here--. Thanks for looking out for me!

[Chris In Milwaukee]

Well, this was the last night of attaching angles to the test wing's ribs. Full length rib was wrapped up tonight. Alan and Tom stopped by tonight to give me a hand. It was a good opportunity for them to learn the differences between squeezing and bucking rivets. Alan, you may recall, is an apprentice A&P. Tom just finished a 3-year restoration of a TriPacer.







Next week, we move on to spars! And a new topic will be born.


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