Riveting the Left Tank Ribs – Part 1

This is a simple update.  I got two of the inner ribs riveted in place in this short session.  I am coming up on the end of a 48 hour fast, and was a bit tuckered out, but wanted to get a little work done, so I decided to get two ribs riveted.  Heres the timelapse of this short build.

I guessed that 10 grams of sealant should be enough to cover wet setting the rivets, and also dolloping on the tails of the rivets, but I was short a few grams and only got one rib dolloped.  No biggie, I’ll dollop the rivet tails later on.

Then I removed every other cleco from the two ribs I wanted to finish, and cleaned up any sealant that had squished into the area and dried.  I also used a hole deburring tool to clean out the countersinks and a drill bit to help with any stuck sealant.

Then, I used a toothpick to swirl a little bit of sealant into the countersink, and inserted a rivet.  Then bucked the rivets with the flush set, cleaning the little bit of fresh sealant from the flush set and bucking bar every now and then.  This went pretty straight forward and I was able to knock these two ribs out pretty quickly.

The photos above are after I had cleaned the areas with some MEK, because a little bit of sealant did squish out from the riveting process.  These things are nice and flush!  Next up I used what sealant I had left in my mixing cup to make dollops on the tails of the rivets.  I used the toothpick to sort of swirl on the sealant and it made decent little dollops on the tails.  However, I only had enough to do one complete rib, so I’ll have to mix extra next time and cover the tails of the other rib.

You can see in the photo above where I ran just short of enough sealant for dollops right at the leading edge.  Oh well,  I’ll get these guys in the next session, and I plan to mix enough to also goop the leading edge nose up really well too.  I cleaned up my tools, but left them sitting out for the next session maybe later tonight or tomorrow, depending on how I feel after I end this 48 hour fast!

Google Photos Link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/1Y4bqrYCFNeedmhP9

Hours Worked: 1.5

 

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