Primed Stab Skins And Riveted Nose Ribs

Using a 1" foam brush I primed all the interior skin rivet lines after first cleaning them with alcohol. Then with the skins back in their cradles I clecoed the nose ribs back in place. After giving it a lot of thought and rehearsing my actions I decided to attempt riveting them by myself. Being tall I had good access to both the factory and shop head sides of each rivet. My concern was controlling the rivet gun and bucking bar at the same time. I used Scotch tape to secure each rivet in place after first checking flushness. The #40 reaming bit was used for cleaning up any slight hole misalignments that prevented a fully flush rivet by just spinning it in the hole with my fingers. With the skins oriented vertically the Scotch tape proved useful as it gave me a target to reference to keep the rivet gun centered over the rivet. With 40 rivets total I worked methodically on each one using 45 psi on the gun and feathering the trigger for a couple small taps to initially set the rivet and check my progress. Once I was convinced all was well I used a couple more short controlled bursts to finish the shop head. It took awhile but in the end I got all 40 set correctly with no drama and no drill-outs.