Popped out into the garage tonight figuring I could get going with the right wing skeleton. First I had to cleco all those ribs to the main spar, which was fairly straightforward…until I got to one rib that seemed off. Oh, that’s because I drilled the mount holes for the wiring conduit on the wrong side of the lightening hole. Well, good thing I still had the little jig I made sitting around. Two more holes and all was well.
I started with the inboard wing walk ribs. The first one went nicely, and the second one seemed to be going OK, but while examining the manufactured heads I noticed one seemed out of alignment with the others. Upon closer investigation, I somehow managed to really smear the head badly.
So now I need to replace that rivet. Problem is, when drilling a rivet out, you use a dimple on the manufactured head as a center punch to get started. Well, that’s not much good when the manufactured head is fouled up like this. I posted some photos to the brain trust at VAF to get some suggestions on how to drill this thing out. I’m not much looking forward to it, since these long rivets grip a lot and require a lot of force to dislodge.
Anyway, I called it a night there. No need to push on and maybe mess up more stuff while I’m distracted and a little miffed by the mistake.