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One of those days...

skelrad

Well Known Member
Friend
It never ceases to amaze me how the easiest task can sometimes turn into a hair pulling nightmare of an experience. I had one of those yesterday. I simply needed to rivet in one of the small flap bracket attach angles. I had just done the other two flap brackets and was on the last, middle bracket. For whatever reason, riveting apparently just turned into a completely foreign concept all of the sudden. I'm guessing I had the holes between the rear spar and angle ever so slightly off kilter to where the rivet couldn't sit perfectly perpendicular to the material, because on my first attempt, two of the three rivets clinched over. I rolled my eyes, and like I've done many other times, I simply drilled the rivets out and reinstalled them. Same outcome! At this point, I didn't really want to drill them out again and risk screwing up the rear spar, so I asked Van's if it was okay to add two additional rivets in the angle instead. They said not a problem. So I drilled two additional holes, only to realize my spacing was goofy and out of line (was hard to see - that's another story). I got the additional rivets in, but the whole angle looks like a 5 year old put it in! It's structural, but wow is it ugly. My saving grace for my type A nature is that the flap gap fairing will cover up most of the rivets and I'll never have to see them again.

Even though academically I know that everything is totally fine, I'm still incredibly irritated at how bad it came out. Such an easy task.... Funny how my perfectionist tendencies are getting seriously exercised during this build.

No help needed. Just therapeutic to blow steam at the computer to people who probably understand! :p
 
It never ceases to amaze me how the easiest task can sometimes turn into a hair pulling nightmare of an experience. I had one of those yesterday. I simply needed to rivet in one of the small flap bracket attach angles. I had just done the other two flap brackets and was on the last, middle bracket. For whatever reason, riveting apparently just turned into a completely foreign concept all of the sudden. I'm guessing I had the holes between the rear spar and angle ever so slightly off kilter to where the rivet couldn't sit perfectly perpendicular to the material, because on my first attempt, two of the three rivets clinched over. I rolled my eyes, and like I've done many other times, I simply drilled the rivets out and reinstalled them. Same outcome! At this point, I didn't really want to drill them out again and risk screwing up the rear spar, so I asked Van's if it was okay to add two additional rivets in the angle instead. They said not a problem. So I drilled two additional holes, only to realize my spacing was goofy and out of line (was hard to see - that's another story). I got the additional rivets in, but the whole angle looks like a 5 year old put it in! It's structural, but wow is it ugly. My saving grace for my type A nature is that the flap gap fairing will cover up most of the rivets and I'll never have to see them again.

Even though academically I know that everything is totally fine, I'm still incredibly irritated at how bad it came out. Such an easy task.... Funny how my perfectionist tendencies are getting seriously exercised during this build.

No help needed. Just therapeutic to blow steam at the computer to people who probably understand! :p

Mind over matter is real. ;)
 
I feel your pain. All I had to do was install nutplates for the avionics tray mounting bolts. Went bad, called it a night, came back the next day and the tray had gotten a good night's sleep and was ready to resume battle.

It's not structural, and the washers cover the misalignment, but sometimes..... grrrr.....
 

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here's some weirdness

Wheel pant axle extension screw appears to have backed out and disappeared in flight and allowed the flox around the end of the extension to shear off and the pant to grab the tire tread and lose a chunk out of the back - the standard failure mode of a wheel pant on an RV from my experience. The issue came to light as I was removing the pant for more paint stripes (didn't even realize anything was amiss until that point), noticed the missing 1/4" screw and had trouble backing one of the #6 screws out. When I finally got the pants off and apart, I realized the #6 was bent and had somehow destroyed the plate nut during removal. Anyone ever see a plate nut "unwind" into a corkscrew from a bent screw being removed? It's a new one on me.
 

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I had a similar experience with the elevator trim tab on my -14. For corrosion protection, I decided to put sealant on the interface of the trim tab horn and the skin. I clenched a couple of the rivets and since I had sealant everywhere I just decided to live with them instead of drilling them out.

Kind of a rite of passage I suppose.
 
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