More Practice

I finished the small practice piece last night, and it turned out much better than the one I made in the SportAir workshop.  It easy to see why so many people like the pneumatic squeezer - once it's set up, it is very easy to set rivets consistently.

I don't quite have the procedure down for adjusting the pressure on the rivet gun to produce good results yet.  The pressure was too high when I was back riveting, and I ended up having to feather the trigger very lightly to avoid completely smashing the shop heads.  Fortunately, the flush rivets all turned out pretty well.  I'll work on that more this weekend.

Practice

Yesterday I organized my workshop a little more, and worked on one of my practice kits from Vans.  The new tools from PlaneTools (Isham) are working well, although I still have much to test. When my tools were shipped, a few components were left out of my order, but a call to Isham resulted in the additional tools being shipped out right away - their customer service has been really great.  I gave the pneumatic squeezer a shot, and it created really nice dimples.  I'm going to use it to drive some rivets this evening.

I ordered my rivet gun (3x) and a back rivet plate from Cleaveland Aircraft Tool, as I liked the style of rivet gun they offered a bit better, and Isham did not carry a back rivet plate.  The Cleaveland website is one of the best among the major tool houses, and they are very good about providing information about your order.  As soon as my order was shipped (the same day it was placed), I received an email with order and tracking information, which was really nice to see.  I will definitely be ordering from these two companies in the future.