Discussion for Sonex builders on specific plans page experience. These posts are limited to technical suggestions such as assembly order, challenges, or techniques related to specific plans pages.
We have been working on the main spars for the wings and have come accross some challenging rivets. Either the driving side is not very accessable or the bucking bar is not able to get in to buck the rivets. We created a couple of tools to help get the job done.
Here is a modified bucking bar. This allows us to get in tight spot between the upper stiffener and spar cap.
Here the modified end it in the gap and we still maintain about 1/2inch as a bucking surface.
Here we have enough room for the thick end.
Here we modified the rivet tool to not be pushed by the spar caps. We tried the bent type tools and they kept slipping off and leaving smiley faces. These worked really good.
Rivet-driver.jpg (8.91 KiB) Viewed 1928 times
If you make a hole a little oversized, here is a possible solution. We pre-squeezed the rivet. Makes it about .003" fatter. Fills the oversized hole nicely. Then drive it normally.
Make-a-thick-rivet.jpg (9.67 KiB) Viewed 1928 times
Scratch building #1604 Tail dragger Thinking Turbo Aerovee