Bob Turner
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2018
- Messages
- 3,914
Today I was attaching the tank rib to some new fabric on a Citabria. I have a new technique - Poly Brush, let it dry, stick the reinforcing tape on, coat that heavily with Poly Brush - you have heard all that before.
I always put pencil marks where the rivet holes go, so it is essier to find them under the fabric and tape. Once everything is dry, then a rib stitch needle and an awl finds all the holes.
The shop was alerted that I needed a rivet puller - I figured that when I got there after the paint dried they would have the fancy pneumatic puller ready - but no . . .
So I inserted all the rivets - looked like a porcupine up there - and asked Alex if we were doing them with air or by hand. He grinned and handed me a "Milwaukee" battery powered puller.
Stick it on the rivet, pull the trigger, and presto - river set, pin broken, and automatically hauled into a receptacle! I think there were 12 rivets, and I was done in three minutes.
Moral of the story - if you are doing an entire wing you need one of these!
Back to rib stitches - I have graduated to the Stitts "rabbit/palm tree/island" method. If you ever need to rib stitch anything, check this out!
I always put pencil marks where the rivet holes go, so it is essier to find them under the fabric and tape. Once everything is dry, then a rib stitch needle and an awl finds all the holes.
The shop was alerted that I needed a rivet puller - I figured that when I got there after the paint dried they would have the fancy pneumatic puller ready - but no . . .
So I inserted all the rivets - looked like a porcupine up there - and asked Alex if we were doing them with air or by hand. He grinned and handed me a "Milwaukee" battery powered puller.
Stick it on the rivet, pull the trigger, and presto - river set, pin broken, and automatically hauled into a receptacle! I think there were 12 rivets, and I was done in three minutes.
Moral of the story - if you are doing an entire wing you need one of these!
Back to rib stitches - I have graduated to the Stitts "rabbit/palm tree/island" method. If you ever need to rib stitch anything, check this out!
