Having primed the remaining aileron parts, I had one more task left prior to final aileron assembly and that was to countersink the trailing edge wedges.
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| Countersinking the trailing edge wedges for the ailerons |
With that done, I started final assembly by riveting the spar doublers to the spars, and then clecoing the nose ribs and counterbalance into the nose skins and using the pneumatic squeezer to set all the solid rivets. I could set most of these with the 3" yoke and the 1/2" flat set, but there was one that required the 4" no-hole yoke. I also had to be careful to avoid hitting the nutplate attached to the inboard nose rib, but taking my time I was able to set all rivets on the first try.
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| Nose skin clecoed to the nose ribs and held in the cradles while I rivet them together |
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| Using the pneumatic squeezer to set all the nose skin to rib rivets |
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| I used skin pins in the center nose rib along the top side to help pull the holes into alignment. These worked well here as they have tighter tolerances than clecoes |
Next, I decided to change the order of steps slightly from the plans and rivet the top skin end ribs to the respective spars. The reason I chose to do this now is that once the spars are riveted to the nose ribs, access to those end rib spar flange holes is severely limited. With the spar and top skin not yet attached, I was able to easily squeeze those 4-4 and 4-6 rivets with the pneumatic squeezer.
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| Top skin end ribs riveted to spar using the pneumatic squeezer |
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| I was able to set all the rib to spar rivets easily with the squeezer, avoiding some tougher riveting if I had done this step later |
I was then able to easily slip the top skin and spar into the nose skin and cleco the spar to the nose ribs, and top skin and spar to the nose skin. Next I used the PRP-26A rivet puller to blind rivet the spar to the nose rib flanges. I had to be careful pulling rivets close to the top skin, but because this rivet puller can fit into very tight spaces, it was easily able to pull all the spar rivets without hitting the top skin.
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| Spar riveted to nose rib flanges using LP4-3 rivets |
Once I had both ailerons assembled to this stage, I was ready to start riveting the top skins to the spar flanges. These were all easily bucked using the Boeing flush rivet set, however there are a couple of rivets that sit exactly in line with the skin stiffeners, and these required laying the bucking bar on its side against the spar while riveting to avoid hitting those stiffeners.
I also used my 3/4" flush set to set the rivets where the top skin extends beyond the nose skin as there is not a lot of room for the rivet set to lay flat against the rivet in those areas. The 3/4" flush set worked well here.
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| Top skin fully clecoed to spar and aluminum angle clamped to the trailing edge to keep it straight while riveting |
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| Using a 3/4" flush set to rivet at the ends of the top skin while avoiding the ends of the nose skin |
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| Top skin riveted to spar |
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Rivets along spar all set to spec, including those at the ends that required use of the narrower rivet set
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After next attaching the bottom skins with clecoes, and making sure there was no twist in the ailerons, I used the same technique as I had for the flaps, with a tungsten bar taped to the long empennage bucking bar, to rivet the majority of the bottom skin to spar rivets.
The few remaining rivets, where the stiffeners get in the way, were done by reaching in between the skins and laying the tungsten bucking bar flat on the spar to set the rivet under the stiffeners.
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| Using the long empennage bucking bar, with a tungsten bar taped to the back, to rivet the bottom skin to spar thereby avoiding having to reach in to the tight space with my arm |
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| Right bottom skin riveted to spar with the exception of a few rivets under the stiffeners that cannot easily be set with the long bucking bar |
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| Same on the left aileron with slightly fewer rivets that could not be reached with the long bucking bar |
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| I set the remaining bottom skin to spar rivets by reaching in and carefully laying the tungsten bar on its side against the rivet. Light finger pressure was all that was needed to hold the bucking bar in place while riveting |
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| Bottom skin to spar fully riveted and trailing edge clecoed on place to check once again for skin tightness and any twist. No issues found on either aileron! |
Next I once again decided to go slightly out of order from the plans, and rivet the aileron counterbalance tubes to the nose skins. These need LP4-3 blind rivets and were easy to set. After setting each rivet, some tapping with a small hammer on the forward and aft edges of the rivet head had them conforming to the curve of the leading edge
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| Counterbalance to nose skin blind rivets all set |
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| After tapping the edges of the rivet head with a hammer, the rivets conform nicely to the curve of the aileron leading edge |
There are only a few steps left before the ailerons are finished. Next up is working on the trailing edges to close those out.
Build Hints
- Skin pins work very well to push the center aileron nose ribs into alignment with the nose skin holes due to their tighter tolerances than clecoes
- You may consider riveting the top skin main rib flanges to the spar prior to riveting the spar to the nose skin assembly, as space gets tight in that area once the hinge brackets are in close proximity
- As for the flaps, the long empennage bucking bar is great for riveting the bottom skins to the spars without having to reach into the tight space between the skins by hand
Time Taken: 11.6 hours
Dates: October 11 - October 19 2024
Aileron Total Time: 43.1 hours
RV-10 Build Total Time: 837.4 hours
Priming Total Time: 102.2 hours (not included in build time totals)
