Continuing on with top skin riveting on the right wing, my daughter and I completed most rivets on the outboard skin (except for those near the skin overlap), and started riveting the inboard skin from the center outward.
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| Getting close to completing all rivets on the right outboard top skin. Very happy with the results so far. |
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| Starting to rivet the right inboard top skin to the ribs |
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| I put tape over the universal head rivets at the inboard end of the rear spar to avoid scuffing them while riveting the skin to the rear spar |
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Outboard top skin fully riveted except for the skin overlap area
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With the outboard top skin riveted all the way to the outboard edge, I was now able to rivet in the outboard aileron bracket. I started by riveting the bracket to the rear spar first, but decided to delay riveting it to the outboard rib because I'll need to move the wing assembly a little to make additional room for the rivet gun.
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| Outboard aileron bracket riveted to the rear wing spar |
Next, my daughter and I finished riveting to the inboard end of the right wing, and I was able to finish setting all the rivets to the inboard end of the rear wing spar. The last five rivets are more difficult to set with the rear spar doubler in close proximity, but I was able to buck them all using my tungsten bar with the 45 deg. angled end.
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| Final few rivets set along the rear wing spar. |
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| Countersunk rivets set over the wing walk doublers |
I did run into a small issue trying to set the rivets into the flange of the aileron torque tube brackets as for some reason the holes in the flanges didn't quite line up with the holes in the other 3 layers. Rather than trying to force a rivet through there, I decided to upsize the two offending holes to #30 and use a NAS1097 rivet instead. There is plenty of edge clearance here and the end result looks good.
I also used the pneumatic squeezer to set most of the rivets (including the nutplate attach rivets) along the inboard rib, however I did have to drill a few out and redo them as extra care needs to be taken to make sure the pneumatic squeezer stays flush against the skin while squeezing, otherwise the countersunk rivets will sit proud when set.
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| All nutplates attached, and riveting of the right wing inboard section is complete |
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| The aft most nutplate attach rivets were squeezed, but be sure to do this after setting the final rear spar rivet otherwise there is no room to get to that rivet with the nutplate in the way |
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| Getting close to finishing the top skins on the right wing. Only the overlapping skin rivets left! |
Build Hints
- When riveting the outboard aileron hinge bracket to the wing assembly, I would recommend riveting it to the outboard rib first, followed by the rear spar. The reason for this is that the rivets attaching the bracket to the rib end up very close to the rear spar when set, and if you rivet the bracket to the rear spar first you would then need to make sure that those shop heads don't interfere while setting the rivets into the rib.
- Be sure to set all inboard rear spar rivets prior to riveting the aft most nutplate at the inboard end of the wing. I first set the nutplate rivets and then realized I did not have enough space to get a bucking bar on the inboard most rear spar rivet. This resulted in me having to drill out the aft most nutplate and redo it after finishing the rear spar rivets.
Time Taken: 10.6 hours
Dates: April 25 - May 10 2024
Top Wing Skins Total Time: 43.3 hours
RV-10 Build Total Time: 668.7 hours
Priming Total Time: 80.0 hours (not included in build time totals)
