I called in the National Guard (I am the National Guard) on this mistake. I somehow missed drilling four holes in the stiffeners and didn’t realize it until getting everything put together. So my wife, dad, and I got creative on getting the whole structured positioned in the dimpler so that I could hit those four holes. I tried my pop-rivet dimpler but the double layer of aluminum proved too much and the finish nails just pulled through without getting a good dimple. With the right planning, twisting, and enough hands, this was a pretty quick fix.

Dad and I started working on the rivets and proved again how efficient it is to have help. My wife didn’t like to hear that news, but she may be helping more now that I know what can be done! I manned the gun and bucking bar while dad popped in the rivets and helped remove clecos. We were able to get the top two stiffeners completely riveted in no time.

We ran into one issue with a frame which has three layers of aluminum to rivet. The last hole was drilled out too big which I think resulted from the metal bouncing on the drill bit during initial assembly. We tried a few different ways with no success, so I’ll be drilling it out and using a larger rivet. I had to order a 1/8″ dimple die for the pop rivet gun and also got bucking blocks that will accept dimple dies. They won’t be used often, but will work perfect when I do need them.