April 30 - May 5, 2024 The aft deck riveting was mostly straightforward, and most rivets could be done with a hand- or pneumatic-squeezer, which is always my favorite way to go when possible. However, a number of them needed rivet gun and bucking, and I found that some of them (see 2nd photo) could not be done with any rivet set that I own. I ended up borrowing a 12” long cupped rivet set from John Cummins, who is also building an RV-14 about 3 miles from where I live. It’s nice to be able to trade tools and ideas! After finishing the aft deck, Paul Mantegna (friend and RV-7 builder and my EAA tech counselor) came over to inspect the tail cone work. (Side note: Paul’s wife Kacy was my student for her commercial and CFI certificates, which we did in their RV-7. Flying with Kacy in her RV-7 made me think that I needed one, and got us started on this journey. If she hadn’t asked me to fly with her, I probably wouldn’t be doing this right now. Thanks, Kacy!?). Anyway, Paul gave me an appropriate amount of grief about the handful of ugly rivets (dirty laundry shown below) that were previously mentioned (though he didn’t pressure me to replace most of them.). He also found a handful more that had various issues, and I ended up with a list of about a dozen that I should replace. Fortunately, I got them all replaced in a couple hours without causing any collateral damage. On to mounting the vertical stab, and then tailcone upper skins (which will finish the empennage).

Time spent: 9hr