I started riveting the second skin to each elevator today. I started by inspecting everything one last time before closing things up.
Riveting along the rear spar requires a special bucking bar. The plans have you start on the left elevator bottom skin as practice before starting on the upper right elevator skin.
The riveting required a much longer burst than with the tungsten bucking bar but the rivets came out great.
The lower rivets on the right elevator trim tab cutout were set with the pneumatic squeezer.
Next up was the top skin of the right elevator.
I had one rivet that I forgot to take a picture of earlier that I had previously replaced. The rib flange separated from the rear spar when I set it with the squeezer. When replacing it I flipped the rivet to keep the shop head on the flange side and I set it with the rivet gun instead of the pneumatic squeezer.
I brushed on some additional primer to fix up the scuffs from removing the rivet.
Next up was setting the blind rivets on the rib halves.
I put the factory head of the rivet on the flange side of each rib to give me slightly more room. I didn’t have any trouble setting them and didn’t have to make the spacer tool described in the plans.
Success. Everything is still looking nice and straight. Next up is attaching the front spar assemblies.