March 02, 2005

1 Hour - Got squeezer yokes, set rudder rivets with them

Today my 2 squeezer yokes arrived from Avery. So, I needed to try them out! I set the 4 rivets on the rudder horn using the longeron yoke to reach around inside there. They came out really good.

Then I moved on to the 4" no hole yoke. I set the rivets holding the counterbalance skin to the counterbalance rib. 3/32" rivets are MUCH easier to set and get perfect with the hand squeezer. These all came out great. I installed the counterbalance weight after that...

Here is the outside of it. The skin is all smudged up with fingerprints, and you can see the marks left from the 'spring-back' dimple dies around the rivets. Other than that, it looks really good!

Here's the 2 new yokes on the right. My 3" yoke that came with the toolkit is on the left. You can see how big these things are from the 12" ruler above them. Hard to believe that you're looking at $500 worth of tools in this picture (3 yokes and hand squeezer)... And the yokes were on sale!)