Having applied JC5A to all the mating surfaces, I clecoed on the R Top Skins.

Lots of clecoes, but it felt good to start assembling the wing : )

Vans suggest that you use a back-rivet technique to set the wing skin rivets. But having had good results with a mushroom set and bucking bar when Tim and I riveted the aft fuselage, we decided to try this again.

This worked well, and access to the rivets was easy with the tungsten bucking bar. I backed off the gun pressure to about 45PSI, just enough to set the rivets with a quick burst, but as gently as possible to avoid skin deformation.

Rear Spar Flange Rivets

These were the most awkward, but with careful orientation of the bucking bar all worked OK.

The rivets along the top side of the Rear Spar Doubler Plate needed a different bucking bar due to the very limited clearance from the plate rivets. After protecting the plate shop heads with tape, we went for it. Happily all fine!

It took us just over 5 hrs to rivet the top skins … punctuated by cups of tea and a pizza! Anyway, job well done. Next job is to rivet on the stiffeners.