Step 3.1, Back riveting the stiffeners

Before the riveting could begin, We needed to get the blue protective plastic off.  There are so many holes on the rudder skin we decided to just take it all off rather than just around the rivet lines.  That gave us the opportunity to test the dowel method of plastic removal.  Using this method, the plastic is started around a dowel and just rolled off of the skin.  One has to hold down the skin as you go because it sincerely wants to follow the plastic sheeting on to the dowel.  It is a little easier than the brute force method, but it does take somewhat longer.  I'll probably just stick to the brutish approach, but Carolina, who is an accomplished contrarian, will undoubtedly go with the dowel method.

With the plastic off, the next step is to dimple the skins and stiffeners.  The rudder skins are so flimsy that I needed some kind of table around the DRDT-2 dimple machine to support the skin during the process, so I added this fold down table to my dimpler stand.  I also shortened the handle about a half an inch as I found it possible to impact an extending skin with the handle fully down.

Now on to the dimpling.

I forgot to take any pictures while dimpling the stiffeners, but surprisingly,  it looked a lot like all of the other dimpling pictures.

Now to get these bad boys attached.  Van's recommends 'back' riveting the stiffeners.  Back riveting refers to driving the rivet from the 'back' side or shop end as opposed to the manufactured end.  Now that I've done this I can see why this process is so popular with builders.  It is much faster and easier than bucking the rivets and there is far less chance of marring the skin with either the rivet gun or bucking bar.

The first thing one needs is a back rivet plate.  Mine is inset flush with the surface of my work bench such that the skin can lay flat over it.

Fix bayonets!  Ahem, I mean attach the back riveting set to your favorite rivet gun.

Ok here is the hard part.  Pick up the tiny weeny AN426AD3-3 rivets and set them one at a time in the dimpled holes.

Apply rivet tape over the line of rivets to hold them in place when you flip the skin over.

With the skin flipped over we see the rivets poking up and we place the stiffener to be attached over these.  Making sure that the manufactured head on the rivet is over the back riveting plate and we are ready to go.

  

With back riveting, a line of rivets can be driven in a matter of seconds.

 Oh look, a movie star came down to help me :)

Stiffeners done.