First Patrol spar well underway! This was fun!

[N3UW]

After pulling out my hair for two weeks with UPS trying to get my cap strips then vacation getting in the way, I was able to get to work on my spar. This weekend I drilled all the holes to final size and painted the parts with epoxy primer. Tonight I shot all of the main rivets in. I am not very good at holding the bucking bar and shooting rivets by myself so I decided to use the back riveting method that I used for the attach stiffeners on ribs. I used a 3/4" x 12"x 12" steel plate as my backing plate and installed my #5 rivet die into the plate. It would have been nice if I had a thicker but smaller piece of steel but this is what I had. I then mounted it on some wood spacers so that it lifted the spar up about 1/4" - 1/2" above the supports. I first shot 2 rivets top and bottom on the inboard side then two on the tip. I them moved to the center and repeated splitting it up in sections until I was finished. I then shot the splice plate. After I shot a few rivets, I installed a Dacron fishing line down the center to make sure things did not warp. It did not move at all. Now one to the rib attach angles and the other spar.

[DRLPatrol]

Great job. Good thought on the back rivet method. Thanks for the pixs and documentation.

Doug

[Barry]

Nice work John! I have my first spar all ready to drill and rivet, but still double checking all my measurements. I may start drilling today.