My goal for the day was to get the leading edge riveted and started cutting out the Duckworks landing light.  However, I did not factor in that today is Andy's senior prom and his girlfriend wanted her hair done by Tami (she is an ex-beautician).  Well, Tami can't rivet while styling hair.  I had the leading edge clecoed together and the frame clamped to the bench ready to go.

While Tami was waiting for Andy's girlfriends hair to dry, she came out and we started shooting rivets.  We no more than got started and Tami's daughter, Nichole called (she lives with her dad and his wife in St. Paul, MN).  She called to tell mom that she was hit by a car while crossing the street the other day and was alright.  Minor cuts, scratches, and was shaken up a little.  No broken bones.  THANK GOODNESS!!!   Okay, this is turning out to be one of those days.  Might as well go motorcycling cause I ain't getting a whole lot of building done.

We stopped after finishing the bottom side so Tami could be prom beautician again.

Riveting the leading edge was a mixture of riveting in the vertical and horizontal positions while it was in the stand.  While the stand was clamped vertically, we were able to get all but the 4 most leading rivets on the top and the 1 most leading rivet on the bottom.  To get those, we had to clamp the leading edge horizontally in the stand.

Notice where clamps are placed.  This held the leading edge steady enough to rivet and clamping as shown below, there was no stress to the skin that would cause it to deform (i.e.: clamps are directly over the vertical risers of the stand).  We had to shuffle the leading edge around a couple of times in the stand to get to all of the remaining rivet holes.

If I was going to build this stand again, I would do it with slightly different dimensions to keep the stand from interfering clecoes.

We started on the bottom side of the leading edge and the riveting process today was going really smooth.  No nuances or difficult situations.  On one of the last rivets for the bottom side, Tami slipped off the rivet with the bucking bar and gave it a nice stair step shop head (trust me, hard to see in the pict, but its there).  I very calmly told Tami it was okay, drilled it out, and dropped in a new rivet, no problem.  We didn't need drill out any rivets on the top side.  WooHoo!!

When we got done riveting it all together, I riveted the plate nuts to the joint plate (W-423).  Everything lined up great...

Of course, when we got done, I had to see what it looked like on the wing.  I just put a couple of clecoes through the skin and the spar to hold it for the night.  Everything lined up great.  Getting closer to riveting it to the spar for good.

Just another picture of the bottom side.  Even my tie down hole lined up really well with the tie down bracket...

Tomorrow, I am going to tackle installing a Duckworks landing light (I think).  I gotta cut a big hole in the outboard bay skin.  I sure hope I don't make any mistakes 8^).  I am planning on that process to take me the entire day.