Well, it just keeps getting better!

I'm only mildly annoyed at myself for using the wrong rivets while putting in the ribs yesterday, and drilling all twenty-eight of them back out and replacing them with LP4-4s wasn't that big of a deal in the long run, but it's still nagging at me. I was out at the hangar this morning putting the nose ribs onto the right wing and as long as I was there I looked at the directions again.

Now, we all know that Van's tells you to read the page through before starting on anything and that is good advice, but they could meet us halfway. If I was to describe the way that particular page was laid out, it would go like this:

1) Cleco and rivet some ribs.
2) Cleco and rivet some more ribs.
3) Cleco and rivet some different ribs.
4) Cleco and rivet one more rib and I promise we're done.

Note: use a different size rivet in steps 1 thru 4.

I'm thinking the placement of that note might have contributed to my mistake.

Still, I own this one. Purely my fault and I'm willing to let this just be water under the bridge.

But then....

I came home to find this message from Bill, The Oregon Kid:

I was just looking at the Blog. I made the same error you did on the LP4-3, 4-4 rivets. Van's told me no problem just leave them in there.

Sigh. While misery loves company, it remains the fact that the only thing I had going for me in this entire incident was the feeling of having done the right thing by biting the bullet and correcting the problem.

Well, that's not entirely true. I also got a reminder about how important it is to fully understand what's going on with each and every page/section of the manual. I put that to good use this morning when I was riveting in the innermost flaperon hinge brace. I found that this brace uses the LP4-4 rivets:

Oddly enough, the top and bottom rivets that go through the doubler and into the ribs look like they would also use LP4-4s, but they don't:

I then went through the normal angst about whether or not I'm interpreting the woefully inadequate picture that shows which side of the flange the ribs go on. I got the first three wrong and had to go back and move them over to the other side.

The nose ribs go in quite easily, although it gets a little tricky as you get to the root area. It's a tight fit and requires the use of the wedge thingy, and the second to last rib is an 'R' instead of the normal 'L' type which caused a little confusion.

Finally, the front spar stub gets riveted on - that was completely uneventful.

Now I have a problem. I'm not sure where I'm going to put this big wing when my loaned-out rib gets returned this afternoon and I go back to get caught up on the left wing. Space is getting really tight!