Ok, so its been a couple days since I posted mainly because not much has happened with the airplane. The last day or two I have been working on a practice kit that a fellow RV-9A builder gave me (thanks Mike!) so that I could get a little rivet practice before I tried to set my first rivet when it counts. I will say that the bucking bar is going to be my nemesis I could do nice rivets with the squeezer of course, and doing a back rivet was easy, but when it came to the bucking bar I didn't do so good. I did quite a few and by the time I was done I was doing acceptable rivets but nothing I would sign my name to.
That said, tonight I finally went back to the plane and started putting things together with rivets. Yes, I set my first rivet tonight! And it looked pretty good! Ok, so I used the pneumatic squeezer but it still is very exciting to finally be putting things together. Here are the results.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKcf0n4ubyLUI7BEgklkrntMIuGlaEP28b05D5UcZVDj5zYwV1mGFg6TkcJ2qYxgbc6V9ThamN8xetQaeK3G6HM0cXYc0HGBYRjS1aR_ap4aWOnTU4vIFUrqL1IM7xSV-bEaj_b04Z3Y4/s400/photo+1+(2).JPG) |
There it is, my first rivet! |
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibUjNQtuuxIn9218QUuFUpbweqAZ4n9AiAM9tplh_5jeW8w4cVCyW-LpNFxcAfUwWstjrT24uXkVRKBby1VcNNNQ0baGsEhv2rRSZR9zOtcnQ4APR42pfKQZMerQkDpho2nDKofz3Cwfg/s400/photo+2+(2).JPG) |
and here is the top |
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihGwQiDTxX1K4YVyrkaznXPnmaCg0kwCERpcMavk7kN_4x0DwtoLDKjYhxFzmyLl4cTUCNJUVpVtsP8LIJpXnBPm3nWVOn5zf0NQjBROJ6w-12e8HI7T3YXHuAKuA8wNgo2myM-3D412E/s400/photo+3+(2).JPG) |
Here is the job almost completed. |