It took quite a few days to grind through the top skin riveting of the first wing, which for random reasons is the right wing. There’s a lot of opinions out there about the “best” way to rivet top wing skins. Some claim back riveting is the best method by far, others claim the crooked back riveting tools are impossible to use and results with conventional riveting/bucking are good. I decided to give back riveting a go and it worked out well, but it requires two of us and after an hour of pressing that large/heavy back rivet bar onto the skins we’re ready for a break. As a result the work was spread out across a number of days, with just 2 – 3 one hour sessions each day. It’s hard to take meaningful photos due to light reflections playing tricks, but I tried my best.
After completion I went back and inspected every rivet. There were a couple already marked – I tend to leave any problem rivets to the end. The final tally was four drill outs, and seven rivets that required a few more taps because they were under-set.
I’m going to go ahead and fit the gap fairings to the right wing, because they’re easy to do and we’re going to take a break for a few days before starting on the top skin of the left wing.