The Murphy Builders Site

Hello All

I am just getting a good start on building my Rebel. I have completed the ailerons, flaps and the rudder and am presently working on the elevators. I have built three other metal aircraft before that used mostly the solid AN type rivets. Rebel's all Avex blind rivets are a lot easer but I have encountered a couple of places where I think solid rivets should be considered. For example the dimpled outboard ribs and skin of the rudder and elevators. I didn't just want to arbitrarily replace the Avex rivets with out giving it some thought and studying the available data. The manual talks a little bit about edge distance, maximum grip length and displays a chart of all the rivets used in the kit. It really does not get into the design data of their rivets. I downloaded some data from www.avdel.trextron.com which revealed that the 120* countersunk rivet RV- 4412 has a grip range of .093 Min. to .250 Max. I am sure a number of you have already done this, but I made up a few test cou
pons of two pieces of .020 thick

aluminum each, In one I drilled six # 30 holes, two of these holes I dimpled. I then pulled two RV-1410 domed rivets, two 120* RV-4412 countersunk rivets and drove two 1/8 x 1/4 solid rivets. In this sample I band sawed through the rivets centers, sanded and polish the sawed edge to get a good look at the cross section of the assembly. The rivets all looked good except the RV-4412. In the other sample I dimpled 4 holes and pulled 4 more RV4412 rivets. I found the countersunk rivets could (with some effort) be rotated by hand between the thumb and index finger. I am not a student of the entire manual yet so I don't know if their or other thin, dimpled assemblies where this rivet is called for but after seeing this I have decided to use AN type rivets in these type of assemblies.

Charlie E. Rebel 802R