I got my new 4" no-hole yoke attached to the squeezer so I could tackle a few of the rivets in tight spaces. In general, the yoke worked really well, but even with it, there were rivets I couldn't squeeze because the space was too tight.
I think the lesson for today is that if the manual says that blind rivets are an option, there's a very good reason they're an option! Getting into the last hole of the rudder ribs may have been possible with a very small bucking bar, but the end result would likely be iffy at best. So from here on out, in all likelihood if a blind rivet is allowed, I'll probably use it. It's funny how some builders seem to think that if you use a blind rivet you're less of a builder. To me, it's a reasonable tradeoff of time. If the hole in the rivet bugs me, I'll just fill it before I paint, but honestly, I don't think it'll even be noticeable. You can see the pop rivet next to the sharpie "R" in the picture. There are a lot of different types of blind rivets specified, but these specific ones are for dimpled holes, so they are flush, just like a solid rivet would be.
On the second side of the same rib I found that I had to use a blind rivet in the last 2 holes vs just the last hole on the first side. That's because once the solid rivet in the 2nd to last hole was set, it created a smaller space that the no-hole yoke no longer fit in. Again, these are going to be at the top of the rudder though, so depending on what color of paint I end up with, probably next to impossible to see.
The last bit of riveting on the skeleton of the rudder was to attach the rudder horn cover. I was able to get 3 of the 4 rivets to the skin squeezed, but my longeron squeezer wasn't long enough to get the very back one. Again, blind rivets are allowed, so that's what I used there. For the 3 rivets that are at the aft edge of the cover (connect the tongue of the cover to the rib - pointing to the left in the picture), Van's calls out solid rivets with the option of blind rivets. Because I didn't install the cover until after closing the skins, there is no way of accessing the back side of these rivets. Had I put this cover on part-way while I was building the skeleton, I could have used solid rivets I guess. I just left it off because I knew it needed to be riveted to the skins. So maybe on airplane #2 I'll remember that I could attach this piece earlier using solid rivets, but for this plane, the acceptable blind rivets will do just fine.
Now for the trailing edge. This is slightly nerve wracking since I need to get an arrow straight trailing edge with less than 1/10" of variation from straight at any point over the 4' span. I'm sure it'll turn out to not be that big of a deal to do, but it's a brand new kind of task and riveting. To start, the recommendation is to adhere the wedge between the skins vs just riveting right away, which can cause warps. Van's used to recommend using proseal to stick the skins together to the wedge, letting it dry while clecoed to a piece of aluminum angle (to keep it all straight), then rivet after it set up. They now recommend using 3M VHB tape instead since it's a lot less messy. After seeing the tape, it blows my mind that it can do any good. It's a double sided tape that is so thin I was questioning if there was anything on the backer paper. I cleaned the wedge with acetone and stuck the tape down on each side.
Once the tape had set for about 20 minutes (supposedly gets stronger the longer it sits), I slid the wedge between the trailing edge of the skins and pulled about an inch of paper off the bottom side of tape. I can't remember if I mentioned this yesterday, but I had prepared a piece of aluminum angle by drilling holes into it that matched the spacing on the skins. I clecoed through the skin, wedge, and aluminum angle in the last hole on each end of the skin, then peeled back the rest of the tape. Then I repeated the process with the tape on the top of the wedge. Once the tape's backing paper was completely removed, I clecoed all of the holes to the aluminum angle. I'll let it sit overnight and hopefully the tape will do it's job and help to keep the skins in position and straight when I rivet tomorrow. Fingers crossed. It's really hard to believe that tape does anything, but apparently it's pretty amazing stuff once it gets bonded.
