First go at practice kits

Over the last few days, i made a start on the practice kits. First up is the practice kit where you basically rivet 0.25 sheets together and onto a piece of angle.

You will notice that ahead of time, i labelled the rivet callout with some color codes, to represent which rivets went where. All was going swimmingly well, until it came time to rivet. I realised that in my eagerness to dimple, i forgot to tape over the holes which were not supposed to be dimpled - doh! Better to make the mistake here than on the emp i guess. 

I ended up just drilling some more #30 holes for the AN470 rivets so i could get some practice setting those. 

I had a go at both riveting with the gun and bar, as well as riveting with the squeezer. Both work very well. The squeezer takes some time to setup, but i helped using the cleveland tool squeezer gap to start with. This is a little larger than needed it seems which is great - as you can just wind the dies in a little to get a good rivet. The link to the table is here: Squeezer Gap setting

Surprisingly i found the gun and the bar seemed more natural. I didn't get a go at using the squeezer on the AN470 rivets - was having too much fun with the gun! Ended up drilling out around 5 rivets or so - including a nice smiled on a AN470 head when i didn't hold enough pressure on the gun. 

I also noted that the countersinks which i thought were large enough, really weren't. There was some pillowing of the sheet on the angle because the countersinks were not deep enough. It is quite hard to tell using the skin as a guide. Going forward with countersinking i think i will need to do 2 things:

1. Make some countersink tokens

2. CSK to a rivet sits flush, then add seven clicks on the CSK cage (0.007") as per the vans instructions in section 5. i.e.

"Use the appropriate rivet or screw as a gauge when you machine countersink. Stop when the rivet or screw is flush. For a dimpled skin riveted onto a machine countersunk surface the countersink must be slightly deeper as mentioned earlier. Proper depth is .007 deeper than when the rivet head is flush. This depth correction corresponds to seven "clicks" on a microstop countersink tool indexed in .001 inch increments."

A good discussion on VAF around countersinking for dimples is also here

I don't think they came out too badly! 

SHOP TIME: 3 hours

Toolbox

From here i started on the toolbox. This involved drilling and deburring etc which was straightforward. I found a file worked as good as if not better than the scotchbrite wheel in the die grinder (which is noisy, and uses LOTS of air, making the compressor run). Also the edge deburring tool worked pretty well i thought. 

I managed to get the ends match drilled, and riveted using the gun and bar. The ends were dimpled using the DRDT2, and the body i used the pneumatic squeezer. You can see the mini table for the DRDT2 in the below picture, as well as my shop cart in use (which is working pretty well i think). 

The rivets on the end were all done with the mushroom set and the tungsten bar, and all came out ok i think! None even needed drilling out. It just takes a little thought ahead of time on which order to rivet, and how to place the clecos (and which ones to remove to help access for riveting). In hindsight, i could have moved some of the clecos to the inside of the frame so they cleared the gun (as the bar could get much closer to a cleco than the gun can) - but it all turned out ok so far. 

Here is one end partially completed:

I have decided to highlight the steps in the manual which are completed as i go, so i don't forget where i am up to, or if i skip ahead any, don't forget to go back. 

Finally, i moved onto the match drilling of the hinges - out came the big drill bits! 

Finally, a couple of shots of the shop cart. Some modification as we go along include a place to hang the hearing protection (the rivet gun is LOUD!), as well as a brush (to remove all the kerf from the bench), and also a hose hanger (on the right), so i can hang the hose when not in use. The air tool hangar is working very well - i like it. I also raised up the drill and dimple organisers to aid in getting out the smaller bits/dies.