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Just found a Pnuematic pop riveter on ebay for 10 bucks. Used of course, but there's deals to be had if your patient!

Yep, definitely,
I bought nearly all my tools on ebay over the course of a 1-2 year period before I actually started building.
Gave me time to investigate what I was going to build, how I was going to build, find metal & other suppliers, make a worktable, setup my workshop and most importantly monitor ebay for bargains that pop up.

I 'am a structures AME for the last 13 years, so I'm pretty well set up for tools. But I have never needed a pneumatic pop riveter. We use very few pop rivets in certified aircraft. I guess I could have used our cherrymax gun at work, but the price was right. I also knew I wouldn't want to pull all those rivets by hand.
I'm patiently waiting for my Waiex tail to arrive, and setting up my shop at home.

Do the SS pop rivets provided by Sonex have a pull through stem? or does the stem remain in the rivet. If they pull through, has anyone tried filling the holes?
Also wondering about the flush rivet option I ordered, does that mean all the rivets on the skin will be dimpled, and then a flush pop rivet installed?

Norm.

structurespilot wrote:I 'am a structures AME for the last 13 years, so I'm pretty well set up for tools. But I have never needed a pneumatic pop riveter. We use very few pop rivets in certified aircraft. I guess I could have used our cherrymax gun at work, but the price was right. I also knew I wouldn't want to pull all those rivets by hand.
I'm patiently waiting for my Waiex tail to arrive, and setting up my shop at home.

Do the SS pop rivets provided by Sonex have a pull through stem? or does the stem remain in the rivet. If they pull through, has anyone tried filling the holes?
Also wondering about the flush rivet option I ordered, does that mean all the rivets on the skin will be dimpled, and then a flush pop rivet installed?

Norm.

The stem generally stays in the rivet, though occasionally they'll come out, which does not affect them structurally. I'm not even sure one could pull all of those rivets by hand; the SS rivets are MUCH harder to pull than aluminum blind rivets; just pulling 5 or 10 by hand is quite a workout for your gripping muscles.

Thanks for the reply Andy. Do you know if the Flush rivet option, means all the external rivets, or just the L/E. Are they dimpled? I guess I'll find out soon anyway, when my tail kit arrives.

Norm

To the best of my knowledge, the flush rivet option means most if not all external rivets are the CCC, countersunk variety. As you said, that's standard on leading edges but you'll end up doing the whole outside. How you accomplish it is up to you but when I did my leading edges, I left the rivet holes at #40 and did not updrill to #30. Once I dimpled the hole, the hole had opened up enough to accept the rivet. This kept things nice and tight. Just my experience...

MichaelFarley56 wrote:To the best of my knowledge, the flush rivet option means most if not all external rivets are the CCC, countersunk variety. As you said, that's standard on leading edges but you'll end up doing the whole outside. How you accomplish it is up to you but when I did my leading edges, I left the rivet holes at #40 and did not updrill to #30. Once I dimpled the hole, the hole had opened up enough to accept the rivet. This kept things nice and tight. Just my experience...

That is a great tip, I'm going to try that!