First Assembled BD-4C Part

Today is a Red Letter Day. I have assembled the anti-servo tab, my first BD-4C part! It is comprised of the HS-6 skin, with four HS-7 ribs inside it, and two TS-16 brackets on the bottom (outside). The rod for adjusting the anti-servo tab will attach to the brackets.

I fitted the two HS-7 ribs to the ends of the skin and drilled the holes. I deburred everything and then riveted it all together.

I had to futz with the rivet tools. The pneumatic rivet puller was not ejecting the shafts after shearing them off. I thought that there was something wrong with the tool but it turned out that I have a bad batch of rivets. The shafts are slightly out of round or too large or something. Whatever it is, one bag of rivets doesn’t work but the rest of the rivets do.

Then I found that the pneumatic puller was too large to install four of the rivets in the brackets. I tried my manual rivet squeezer and it’s nose was also too large. Not a problem for a Man With A Grinder, though. I made the nose smaller and pulled those rivets. Mission accomplished!

Click either of the pictures above to jump to the photo gallery for more pictures.