Elevator Skins and Rear Spar

Continued assembling the elevators tonight, starting with the back-riveting of each rib half to the corresponding skins. The rib halves have a larger and a smaller part, and between the right and left elevators the larger part goes on either the upper or the lower skin, such that all flanges point outwards. The back-riveting process is briefly detailed below:

First, the rivets are placed into the holes (8 rows of 8 rivets, on each of the 4 skins) and then covered with rivet tape. Rivet tape only provides adhesive on the edges where the red color is, and is simply clear cellophane in the middle. This allows for holding the rivet in place, but prevents the adhesive from interfering with the rivet itself.

The skin is then turned over (with the tape holding the rivets in their holes) allowing the part being riveted, in this case the rib half, to be placed over the protruding rivets. Then, the rivet gun is used to set the rivets using a back-rivet attachment.

Next, the trim reinforcement plates were attached to the skins using the same back-rivet technique:

The trim reinforcement plate riveted into place

Lastly, the rear spar was riveted into the L-upper and R-lower skins (the skins that had the larger of the two rib halves on them). In the following picture, the front spar is shown also set into position, but it is not yet riveted into place.