Final elevator assembly begins (and another OOPS)

Tonight, I was able to begin riveting the piles of elevator parts together! I began by assembling the tip ribs and their skins. This was straight forward, but the longeron yoke is required if you squeeze these rivets.

Next came the front spars. I riveted on the doubler plates for the hinge points and the nut plates that go along with them, followed by the inside ribs and the elevator control arms.

And, finally, the last thing I wanted to get done for the night was to back rivet the rib halves to the skins. Back riveting goes quickly and leaves perfect looking rivets, so I always like doing it.

However, this time, I made a slight mistake.

Like riveting a WHOLE SKIN with the WRONG RIBS! D’OH! Well, nothing to do but drill out SIXTY FOUR freaking flush rivets!

Luckily, I had two things going in my favor. First, I had a size 42 drill bit thanks to fellow Minnesota RV-10 builder Mike B. This bit is just a bit smaller than the hole the rivet sits in, meaning that then you drill the head of the rivet out, it’s less likely that you’ll hit the edge of the hole. Mike, I owe you!

The second thing in my favor was that these rivets were back riveted. Why does that matter? Well, the AN rivets used in the RV-10 have a small dot in the center of the head. This dot is a marking that tells you the type of rivet. It also happens to be a perfectly centered dimple to start a drill bit in.

During normal flush riveting, the impact of the flush set smears this tiny dot, and it’s basically invisible. But since these rivets were all back riveted, the dots were all intact, meaning I had a nice centered place to start my drilling. And it worked perfectly. Nothing lost but some time and 64 rivets!

After my little snafu, I was able to proceed with finishing the rest of the rib halves… this time in their correct position!