Wing Skin Riveting - finally

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Wing Skin Riveting - finally

Postby racaldwell » Tue Jan 26, 2016 1:14 pm

Just wanted to post a picture of the first outboard skin I have riveted. All this work trying to get to the point of being able to rivet and then finally, the day is here. At least of one wing. Still have pilot holes in the other.

I used solid AN426AD 4 rivets for the top surface. Flush rivets are so nice to work with after the AN470's in the spar. The picture is a shot of the inside showing the bucked rivet. I don't have a picture handy of the exterior right now. I riveted the bottom skin with the CCC-42 as there is no access to use solid rivets. Some of these had the stem break off above the rivet so now I have to grind those down with the dremel. Its nice to shoot those rivets solo but I still prefer solids.
Attachments
Wing Top Skin Riveted Shrunk.jpg
Inside riveted top outboard skin
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Re: Wing Skin Riveting - finally

Postby Direct C51 » Tue Jan 26, 2016 2:02 pm

There has been some talk about different lots of CCC-42s being more susceptible to breaking proud, and maybe I got lucky in this regard, but I had zero issues with a mandral breaking proud in either wing. Make sure you use a #32 bit. If you use a #30 then dimple, the hole will be far too big. I also used a 3 inch scotch brite disc in a drill to deburr the skins before dimpling. Deburring with a deburring tool seemed to result in a slightly enlarged hole after dimpling. A tight fit will help with proud mandral breaks. Is this the whole reason you went with solid rivets?
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Re: Wing Skin Riveting - finally

Postby Concorde » Tue Jan 26, 2016 3:59 pm

Direct C51 wrote:There has been some talk about different lots of CCC-42s being more susceptible to breaking proud, and maybe I got lucky in this regard, but I had zero issues with a mandral breaking proud in either wing. Make sure you use a #32 bit. If you use a #30 then dimple, the hole will be far too big. I also used a 3 inch scotch brite disc in a drill to deburr the skins before dimpling. Deburring with a deburring tool seemed to result in a slightly enlarged hole after dimpling. A tight fit will help with proud mandral breaks. Is this the whole reason you went with solid rivets?

I believe you could also dimple the 3/32 hole and then up drill to 1/8 . Would there be an issue with this ?
Ben
Sonex # 1684
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Re: Wing Skin Riveting - finally

Postby NWade » Tue Jan 26, 2016 4:25 pm

Concorde wrote:I believe you could also dimple the 3/32 hole and then up drill to 1/8 . Would there be an issue with this ?


Yes. The issue with the method you describe is that drilling creates a bur. But if you've already dimpled the hole, it is very difficult to properly debur the hole. Your beburring tool doesn't fit down into the dimple (the "innie") on one side; and on the other side (the "outie" side) the burr tends to flare out and the angle of the deburring tool doesn't take off the bur around the outside of the hole - only the inside edge of the hole.

Many builders (including myself) have experimented with this quite a bit, and the best results are updrilling with a #32 or #31 bit, then deburring, then dimpling (which stretches the hole open some, but does not produce a bur).

Enjoy,

--Noel
Sonex #1339
All flush pulled rivets, TD, Center-Stick, Acro-Ailerons, Turbo-Aerovee
Wings & Tail complete, Fuselage underway (530 hours)
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Re: Wing Skin Riveting - finally

Postby Bryan Cotton » Tue Jan 26, 2016 5:32 pm

Looks great. Also answers my previous question about riveting the whole top surface then flipping over.
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Re: Wing Skin Riveting - finally

Postby racaldwell » Tue Jan 26, 2016 5:38 pm

I went with solid rivets for several reasons. I like the looks of the solid rivets mainly. I am trying to save weight where I can and Al. rivets are lighter than SS. I am also more experienced with them than the others. I have all the tools for them. I did get the Avery dimple die for the 120 deg. Avex rivet, which I used on the skin. I did use a #30 drill on this bottom skin. The numb on the dimple die fits that hole but not the #32 or #31 holes. Do you turn down the numb in order to use the dimple die? Same would apply to the numb on the countersink cutter when doing the spars.

Of the few hundred of CCC-42's I used on the bottom skin, about 10 broke proud. However, none of the CCC-44 used in the spar top and bottom broke proud. I noticed the mandrel for them was further down the hole whereas the -42's are at the surface or above.

All the other skins are still #40.
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Re: Wing Skin Riveting - finally

Postby NWade » Tue Jan 26, 2016 6:32 pm

racaldwell wrote:The numb on the dimple die fits that hole but not the #32 or #31 holes. Do you turn down the numb in order to use the dimple die? Same would apply to the numb on the countersink cutter when doing the spars.


Given that the spars are not dimpled, what I did was run a #32 drill bit through the skin and spar, then ran a #30 bit through the spar holes only, then countersunk.

For skins: The nub on the Pop-Rivet springback dimple die I use fits in a #32 hole most of the time. Its tight though. Both clecos and the nub on the dimple die needed to be worked into place for some holes. On others, where the nub just didn't go, I would start the squeeze slowly (or light taps at first, when using the C-Frame). This would push the metal down around the nub and then the dimple could be formed with a good squeeze/whack. Its faster to do than to explain. :-) Also note that deburring before dimpling really helps here, as you remove the excess material that may cause trouble with the dimple dies fitting/working properly.

Take care,

--Noel
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Re: Wing Skin Riveting - finally

Postby WaiexN143NM » Wed Jan 27, 2016 4:01 am

Hi all,
If you have some time peruse the Cleveland aircraft tools website, a good shout out to Bob and Judy Avery on the home page. Cleveland is stocking a lot of their product.
Look up the dimple die page, remember dimple dies for pulled rivets are 120 degrees . They carry one die set 'DIENQ' $50 , to start with a #40 drill for 3/32 clecos , dimple die, ream to # 30 drill. Nice tight fit for 1/8 pulled rivets. If you drill to 30 and use a 1/8 die the hole gets big. I've bought a couple sets.
Cleveland is a class act, they always set up at Oshkosh with a outdoor sales display across from sonex booth. Started by Buzz, DJ, and Mike Lauritsen. They built an award winning RV-4. Sadly Buzz has passed, but always good to see DJ and Mike running the outdoor display with their great staff.

I've bought different batches of pulled rivets, some are more easier to breaking off proud.

Good to see a lot of people making good headway on your projects!!
WaiexN143NM
Michael Radtke
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Re: Wing Skin Riveting - finally

Postby racaldwell » Wed Jan 27, 2016 9:22 am

Michael & all,

Thanks for the reply. The technique you describe is new to me as my past riveting has been with solid except one project years ago with cherry max. But this is a first for me with flush riveting for blind rivets.

Does the #40 dimple die make a deep enough dimple for the -4 avex rivet? As someone mentioned, after dimpling with #40 then drilling up to #30, how can this be deburred? I have always deburred after drilling to final size then dimpling at the final size.

I noticed the plans state the sequence you describe. Is the #40 dimple die made for 120 deg rivets like the #30 dimple die?

I have tools from Cleveland and Avery. Both are great. Good to hear Avery's inventory is now available from Cleaveland now that Avery is retired.
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Re: Wing Skin Riveting - finally

Postby racaldwell » Wed Jan 27, 2016 2:22 pm

I checked Cleaveland and the only 120 deg dimple die is the #30. I tried to find hole tolerances for blind rivets but I do not know the mfg of the rivets Sonex supplies. One mfg I found listed the SS 1/8" rivet for 0.128" - 0.133" dia. holes. So that is 0.005" more than the #30 drill. It would be interesting to see what the dimpled #30 hole opens up to. I'll see if I can find a 0.133" pin gage.

I forgot to mention the relief holes I filed on the front corners of the nose rib. You can see it in the picture. I didn't do this when I fit the LE skin and every rib had a bump in to from the rib. When I had the skin back off, I lightly tapped the bump down and filed the reliefs. Now when I fit the skin, the bump is gone. Filing the relief should be stated on the plans.
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