Progress Update #1

So far I have enjoyed my senior project immensely. Each meeting usually starts with a quick lesson on what we will be working on for the day. These have included aerodynamics and the metals that are involved in the plane and how they are made. I feel that I have learned so much over the course of the project in just a few short months. One of the primary things we have worked with are rivets. These are a small piece of metal that holds the other pieces of the plane together. However on any particular part of the plane there are hundreds of them so putting them in or taking them out is a multiple day ordeal. This can be very frustrating at times as it can feel like little progress has been made, although it is rewarding to see a finished piece. The image below is a picture of rivets that I removed along with the tools that were used to do the job. The frustrating part is that it can take a few minutes to get just one rivet, and I spent about an hour to just get those few rivets below out.

After all of the rivets are taken out and the pieces of metal are cleaned we then have to put all of the rivets back in. This is usually a two man job as one person shoots the rivet gun while the other person holds a bucking bar to squash the rivet and hold the pieces of the plane in place. Below there is a small section that was riveted together by Jason and I.

Sometimes the pieces of metal that the rivet goes into do not perfectly line up. We then have to use a small tool and wiggle it around to make the holes line up so that we can put the rivet in and secure the two or more pieces of metal together.

Form B: 18 hours