Well, I took a deep breath yesterday and committed to joining the rear spar to the tank. The section is a whopping 2 pages of actual instructions -- 1 page says to cleco everything together, the other says to rivet it. All 33 rivets are 470AD4-4 that needed to be bucked since there was no way to get a squeezer anywhere near both sides.
I am still quite leary of my skills in bucking rivets, hence the trepidation in this step. Having said that, I'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out. I am starting to get the feel of how much force to use with the bucking bar. Counterintuitively, holding it with too much pressure simply causes a lot of noise and not much deformation of the rivet tail. Obviously, not enough pressure and it simply bounces away. If you use just the right amount of pressure, the tail of the rivet sets in only 8-10 impacts.
Some of the rivets were in a place that I could only see the shop head and had to hold the bucking bar blindly. I'm quite surprised that it went well. I did use the guage to ensure that the shop heads were within spec.
Tomorrow, I'll finish riveting the spar, tank and inboard mixer box together. Those use the famous Cherry rivets that are stronger than the regular LP3-4's but are harder to pull correctly. The sealant should arrive tomorrow or Wednesday and I'll re-seal the Left tank. They say 3rd time's the charm. Stay tuned.
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