This has not been a good day. I was preparing to squeeze the rivets in the control column brackets when the rivet squeezer broke. It would not open and when I finally was able to get it to open it would not close. Something inside has come apart.
I called Mike at Cleaveland tool and told him what happened. He asked me to send it back to them and they will see what the problem is. After describing what has been happening over the last few weeks he thinks it has a defective ram which has allowed some internal parts to flare and the ram got caught on the yoke, which in turn caused another internal part to fail. He said they will get it repaired and send it back as soon as possible. In the mean time I will be very limited in what I can do because there are tons of rivets that need to be squeezed in the fuselage build.
Today I did assemble the control column brackets with the spacer/stops and internal bearings. I was able to pull the LP4-4 rivets but that is now as far as I can go. For the next week or so I will have to limit my building activities to prepping and priming parts for future assembly.
Tomorrow I hope to final drill the 7/16" and 3/4" holes in the bulkhead. I will also need to round out the 1-1/4" hole. I can also countersink all of the #30 and #40 holes shown on the drawings. I will also begin prepping some of the parts to be riveted to the bulkhead and begin priming them.
