After all the prep comes the fun of putting it all together. There are lots of holes in the rear spar doublers that are not riveted at this stage … rib attachment holes, outboard aileron bracket holes, and the holes which will attach the Flap & Aileron Gap Fairings in Section 20. I taped them off as suggested to avoid tears!

I set all these rivets with the squeezer, and because access was easy after clamping to the workbench, I was very pleased with the consistent results. I applied JC5A Jointing Compound prior to riveting as I have done throughout the build.

Reinforcement Fork & Doubler Plate

There are lots of rivets in these plates of several different lengths and types. I decided to build both spars concurrently, so I was able to set the squeezer once for each type, setting them on each spar, hence saving time.

Reaming Critical Hole!

Critical Hole – GULP! Having been made very worried by this statement I decided to take extra special care. So I clamped the spars to the bench drill table, and made certain that the table was set perfectly perpendicular to the reamer. The hole in the Doubler Fork was punched 11/32″ by Vans, whereas the hole in the doubler plate had been final drilled to 11/32″ by me. I decided to centre the reamer on the pre-punched hole, hopefully taking out any inaccuracy in my final drilled hole. After triple checking the reamer with a calliper (just in case a gremlin had stamped 3/8″ on the wrong reamer : )), and carefully centering it in the hole, I went for it. A complete non-event, and the holes seem just fine.

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