Back riveting fuselage skins

I'm thinking about giving back riveting fuselage skins a try. My thinking is my fiancee can simply hold a round edged bucking bar on the outside of the 10 tailcone and I can lay inside and back rivet. For you who have gone this route, any gothca's I need to be aware of? I bucked all the skins on my 7 which turned out great but thinking back riveting my just be the way to go.

We back-riveted a ton of skins on my -7, using both a regular back-rivet set and a double-offset one, plus occasional oddball sets of various lengths.

Biggest help was this bucking bar:

http://www.cleavelandtoolstore.com/prodinfo.asp?number=BB46



or one similar (I think ours came from Avery). If you try to use too small a bar, or one with too sharp an edge too near the rivet, you'll crease the skin or ding it. These have a very large face with rounded edges, and a big ol' handle that just about anyone can easily grab and push the bar onto the skin/rivet and hold it there good and firm.

Backriveting makes the skins look beautiful...

You can back rivet most of the tail cone on a table-------just dont join the bulkhead half's together till the "J" stringers, and bulkhead half's are riveted to the side skins.

Big table, and big back rivet plate help..........

Be sure to keep the parts pushed together when you do this, as no clecos are there to do it.

BlackRV7 said:

.........My thinking is my fiancee can simply hold a round edged bucking bar on the outside of the 10 tailcone and I can lay inside and back rivet........

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Dana,

My thinking coincides with your thinking. My wife is not all that "skilled" in the use of aircraft tools so I wanted to make the riveting experience as easy on her (and me) as humanly possible. All she had to do was lay on the bucking bar while I set the rivet shop head on the opposite side. The only "gotcha" that immediately comes to my mind is to make certain your communication skills are up to the task at hand and per prior agreement, she is actually backing up the rivet you intend to shoot.

It will work out fine and your fiance just might walk away from it feeling like "Rosie the Riveter."

Rick6a said:

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It will work out fine and your fiance just might walk away from it feeling like "Rosie the Riveter."

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But explain to her first that SHOUTING is just for urgent communication in a noisy enviroment... some ladies get the wrong message the first time this happens...

az_gila said:

But explain to her first that SHOUTING is just for urgent communication in a noisy enviroment... some ladies get the wrong message the first time this happens...

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Too funny. My previous experience was with my two son's who became quite the shooters. Considering I'll have ear protection on to preserve what hearing I have left........I just may be a little loud

I am with Mike on this. I was able to back rivet the entire tail cone by myself, except about 10 of the most aft rivets. While the chance of smileys is low using a bucking bar, the chance is zero when doing it on a work bench with a back riveting plate.

Jim Berry
RV-10

I used the bucking bar in the pic above

to shoot as many as possible with my wife. I was inside the tailcone on my work bench and it worked out great. We could really fly once we got the "nak" for it. Yep, communication is the key. We said this over and over and over, "Ready, go, good or k(for Okay)". I set up a small practice sheet clamped down to help with getting the "nak". I sometimes used riveters tape without any clecos, sometimes with a few clecos and other times just lots of clecos and no riveters tape. Just depended on how things were fitting up. I kept a piece of clear packaging tape on the bucking bar most of the time. I always had her wear at least shoes-...no flip flops in my shop. I marked the sizes(-3.5, -4, -4.5, etc) on the outside to help us out. Usually had everything ready to go for her to lessen her time out here. She did really good with the rivet gun too! I could not have done it without her on many areas.

Now working on finishing filling/sanding windshield base fairing/windows edges. The longest section of all for what you get visibly accomplished. I am glad I changed my mind from that Velocity idea. Ha. Saved some money anyway. Have fun with the riveting. Drive up if you want some "time saving" pieces for the build. I even have some free oops rivets.

rv10

I had the use of a 4 X 8 ft steel table made for half inch boiler plate. I could lay the tail cone up on this table and press down on the stringers to back rivit most all of the tail cone.
Sequencing is important so that you get the parts aligned in perfect fit. I used all the clecos I could put in place and pulled them out in sections as I made progress. You can do almost all of the tail cone with back rivits and when you close it up and the top skins go on stand it up on end. the back rivit driver stands up inside driving and the bucker is on the outside.
If you can try to get the largest piece of boiler plate that you can manage and put it on a table and lay the tail cone up on it like in my pictures.
This link has several pictures of my tail cone laying on the steel table exactly in the position I used to rivit.
http://btconline.net/~sportpilot/RV10/boatright

So quick question... How is that tungsten bucking bar that flying Scotsman posted from Cleveland different from a regular tungsten bucking bar? I noticed the price is MUCH less than your typical tungsten bar...

Well, for one thing, it's not tungsten (at least not the one I have). It's just highly polished steel, with the large face about 2" or so in diameter. Perfect size for holding the "handle" and pressing the large flat face against the flush manufactured head.

This one is maybe a little different from the one I have...I think mine came from Avery, but there site seems to not show it or I can't find it (although the pic on their link for bucking bars quite clearly shows it).

Search Item Number 635 on Avery. Seems their site redo is still in process.

http://www.averytools.com/prodinfo.asp?number=635

I fully agree with the advice on the big round bucking bar for the back rivetting. It's the only way to go.

Backrivetting of the highly curved areas of the fuselage produces dramatically better results because the hammering of the rivet gun pushes the skin outwards and you retain a nice convex skin curvature without flat areas.

I backrivetted most of my fuselage and wing skins to obtain the optimum finish but I cannot say that it is necessarily easier to do (in fact I'd say it's considerable more taxing). It's more difficult for the person with the gun when they have to shoot from inside the fuselage with cramped and difficult access. It's very easy to end up with deformed or sloping rivet shop heads. Many people try back rivetting but give up when they can't get on top of it.

I also don't think it's a technique I'd adopt with an assortment of amateurish bucking partners. You need a person who knows what they're doing and with whom you have a developed pattern of communication. The difference with back rivetting is that as you hammer the rivet tail you tend to be pushing the rivet head out of its dimple recess. If the bucking partner does not apply very significant pressure at the correct moment the rivet will set but the factory head will not be flush and you'll have to drill it out.

But get a back rivetting set and try it out. They're cheap enough and you'll know after the first couple of dozen rivets if it's for you.

Incidentally, you'll need REALLY good artificial light inside the fuselage to have any chance of success. You want bright light, but not hot light or you'll cook in there.

Larry and I back riveted everything we could. Sure glad we did.

My wife and I...

My wife and I riveted the cabin floor and the cabin side skins.

She preferred back riveting.

After me being stuck in the upside down cabin area (still on the jig)

I preferred back rubs!

For the longest time she did not want to really help, but then she started to say, hey that is starting to look like an airplane! She knew that my daughters boyfriend couldn't help for a couple of weeks, so she offered.

It all turned out Mighty Fine, and now I have an experienced riveting partner close by.