Empennage

Pulled out the hand squeezer and riveted the VA-146 assembly together. I had picked up a spray can of the self etching primer at the NAPA store in Weatherford and primed the bearing after I had cleaned it up. Being the first time I used the squeezer I wasn't too sure of how it was supposed to come out. Section 5 of the manual says the 'shop head' is supposed to be 1.5 times the size of the shank of the rivet. On the first squeeze I couldn't tell that it did too much. I called my friend Red and asked him about it. He's in the middle of building a RV-8 and has been here already. He said I could put some thin washers behind the dies which would give more squeeze to the rivet. I ended up doing that with one washer, and then with another one. I took these pictures and e-mailed them to him. I hope that he'll let me know if I need to put another washer or two in the squeezer.

1.0 hour