Trent's RV14 Build: 20-04: Riveting bottom inboard wing skins (finally!)

Read the plans!

To get things started with the riveting of the bottom wing skins - i read the plans! In Step 4 on page 20-04 you start to rivet the inboard skins in place, however there was a note:

In Step 5 you begin to rivet the OUTBOARD wing skins, so i was confused - when did you rivet the forward end of the inboard skins if you stopped at the row just past the J-Stiffner? (as per the note)

The answer came when i remembered that when Van's places a note, it refers to the STEP AFTER the note. So, i was supposed to rivet the entire inboard skin in place, before moving onto the outboard skin.

Interference

As with all the wing skins, there lies a single rivet on each rib one hole forward of the J-Stiffner which ends up being under the "J" of the stiffner - my normal tungsten bar did not fit underneath. I had some big trouble with a rivet under a J-Stiffner on the aft fuselage, so i was a little hesitant to have so many rivets under the J-Stiffner. To try and avoid these i decided to rivet down the skin and include the single rivet forward of the J-Stiffner, and then slide the J-Stiffner into place. This would not be possible with the left wing, as the J-Stiffner has the ADAHRS mount already riveted to it, but i would cross that bridge when i came to it (and in the end it was not an issue!).

Finally Riveting

Riveting started in the centre of the skin at the wing spar. For the most part i was able to easily reach the aft spar rivets through the access panel hole, however there was one rib bay where i had to reach up from below. I found the key to this was to sit on a very low (maybe 10" tall) foot stool. This allowed me to be high enough to reach the spar, however low enough to get my arm under the skin. I used some little lengths of ply, which were cut at one end to an angle and covered in tape, to hole the skins out for reaching in.

Plywood sticks really helped in reaching the spar rivets. Once i got half way to the J-Stiffner i was able to reach all the other rivets through the holes in the ribs.

I ended up with a massive bruise here.

For all skin riveting i used about 31psi on the regulator and used the swivel mushroom set (with the rubber protector).

Rivet Order

The rivets were set in the following order - always starting in the centre of the skin (span wise) and working inboard and outboard evenly:

Rear spar rivets
Down each rib, half way to the J Stiffner.
Slide the J Stiffner in place.
Remaining rivets down to the J Stiffner
Along the J stiffner
Down each rib to the main spar
Along the main spar

The root rib was done using the squeezer and the called our nutplates were installed at the same time.

Flap Bracket Rivets

The only exception to the plans rivet callouts, was the 8 rivets around the flap bracket. I found that it was not very easy to get my swivel mushroom set in that close to the flap bracket, and was not very keen on using the backrivet set - i thought this was a sure-fire way to damage the skins. Especially since i was at the end of my reach - controlling the gun in this case is quite difficult already. So these rivets were drilled to #33, and a MK-319-BS rivet was used in these holes.

Left hand skin - troublesome rivets under the J Stiffner

As mentioned above, the single rivet on each rib under the J-Stiffner was going to be very hard to set. I thought i would have a look through my drawer and see which bucking bar was best to use - and found this little beauty, which i never tried in previous situations. I wish i had - because it worked perfectly! Every rivet under the J-Stiffner came out great - it needed a longer set time since the bar has less mass, but they were all great!