Fairing Nutplates

Feels like I'm moving backwards at times. The empennage fairing continues to absorb a lot of time to get completed. I had to remove the elevators, rudder and vertical stab to install all the nut plates which was a pain. Vans doesn't do builders any favors by providing the fairing with the Finishing Kit. It needs to be part of the Empennage Kit. I could have had it completed many months ago. Once the vert stab was removed, I had better access to the areas that required nut plates. I used a nut plate and a cutoff #6 flush screw as a drilling jig for the nut plate rivets holes. I also elected to used NAS1097 rivets for the first time. The rivets have an undersized countersunk head. So instead of dimpling or deep countersinking for a standard AN426-3 rivet you can make a small, shallow countersink in pretty thin material and have a nice, flush rivet. They're ideal for nut plates and I'm pleased with how they went in and look. I used my new 1" squeezer yoke which I bought specifically for nut plate installation. I made another change to the plans by using Cherry CCR264SS-3 pulled rivets in several locations on the fuselage. These 3/32" blind rivets are specifically for nut plate installation. The factory head looks a little different from a normal solid rivet since its hollow and has a hole for the stem. A small dab of filler smeared over the rivet head and painted they are nearly indistinguishable. I'd queried Vans on using them and got their blessing. I used these on 7 rivets on the fuselage that would have been nearly impossible to buck solid rivets in working solo. And even tougher to remove if they were bad. At the end of the day I got all 29 nut plates installed. I think I'll move on to the ELT install since I have it and the vertical stab is off the plane which will make life easier.