Lots of pop rivets in kit???

g_e_young · Post by **g_e_young** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 10:41 am

Hey guys,

I just unpacked all the little brown bags for my RV-8 kit and I noticed that there seem to be a lot more pop rivets than were in my -6 kit of 12 years ago. Does Van's now give users the option of using a lot of pop rivets to save time, or are there a lot of pop rivets left over when the empennage is complete. Or are there just that many mandatory pop rivets?

When I built my RV-6, I was of the mentality that I never would use a pop rivet unless I absulutely had to. Well, let me just tell you that that philosophy added a bunch of time (and grief) to the project because of the rivets I would screw up and then have to re-rivet, and then screw up again, and then have a hole that was too big for a pop-rivet, etc. Now, if there's a place where I can use a pop rivet, I WILL. They are just as strong and once the plane is built and painted, nobody ever knows those pop rivets are there. My 2 cents!

grant-

Post by **Spike** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:14 am

Hey Grant,
Glad to see that you are building again!! I also thought that there were a bunch of the pop rivets in the tail kit for the 9. Reading through the drawings there are definately a good amount of places to use them. Van seems to give you the "option" of using them in places where he calls out the standard AN rivets. I think its a good thing!!

-- Spike

g_e_young · Post by **g_e_young** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 11:01 am

So last night I read the instructions and I see that the order of construction is totally different than before all the pre-punched skins. I think this new non-jig construction method is the reason for a few more pop-rivets. I'm going to post a questions about this in the RV-8 area.

g-