SonexBuilders.net

All,
How the heck did you set these rivets by the aileron counterbalance?

Ugh. Worst rivets on my airplane. I really want to know how people did this because I have 2 left to pull

You don't want to see mine! I never had much luck and to say the least, those few rivets on mine turned out terrible.

The only way I know how to set those with any reliability is to use some sort of hand rivet squeezer intended for hard to reach areas. Or you can do what I did and take a Harbor Freight hand puller and grind it down to the point you can use that! Those are tough ones to set!

Get yourself a PRG 410 hand rivet gun, because the thing is that slim, you'll be amazed the awkward places it can be used to pull rivets where no other rivet gun can. (I believe I did these with that gun, possibly in combination with a small aluminium wedge I made with hole in it)

You can't buy em new anymore but they regularly come up on ebay, like now:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Pop-Riv ... 1062852608
http://www.ebay.com/itm/United-Shoe-Mac ... 21019d45a2
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-United- ... 35f0c68ecd
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-1963-PO ... 4aef9263bc

Seriously, this one is a great one to have in your toolbox!

Edit: just looked back through my log and I can confirm, I did these with the PRG 410, in fact, this was the point when I bought it, I've used it many times after, trust me:
http://www.mykitlog.com/users/display_l ... 79&row=220

Thanks Rizzz, got one on the way.

Here's a picture from my builders log of how I set mine. They turned out pretty good.

https://sonex528nm.wordpress.com/#jp-carousel-211

I used this riveter: http://www.averytools.com/prodinfo.asp?number=P26A. It was much less expensive when I bought it though!

Wish this forum had good way to quickly post photos, but I made my own close quarters puller from common $10 hardware store unit. Ground off everything forward of the barrel, and enough to expose about 1/3 of inside of the barrel at nose. Welded stiffener wedge to back side. That puller can fit very close to walls. To get closer, I have a small wedge with a mandrel sized hole in it welded to section of welding rod as a handle. That wedge holds rivet heads flat when rivet puller held at slight angle. In effect pulling the mandrel around a slight bend which allows setting rivets with near zero clearance to wall.

David A.

I don't remember exactly, but chances are I used my handy little wedge piece that worked very well for 100's of hard to reach rivets. Basically a small wedge piece (about 30 degree wedge) of aluminum with a hole in it for the mandrel. This lets me insert the rivet, slide the wedge on the mandrel, bend the mandrel about 30 degrees then bring in the rivet gun at that angle. Bottom of the wedge stays flush against the rivet.

Also, here's a previous post on the subject:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=909&p=6718&hilit=aileron+rivet#p6718

A little late, but, I picked this one up at a local hardware store a while ago. Read about it on the Yahoo site, I think. Hope it works when the time comes.