vortilon
Well-Known Member
My project will be skinned with .020 T3 attaching to .020 T3 ribs. I have been agonizing over the dimpling process because of the limited flange width of the rib caps. I was thinking of just using button heads. I have done considerable work on aircraft that had back shot rivets and shaved heads on the exterior of the skins. Most of these aircraft were Douglas and it makes a nice looking product. Has anyone ever tried this with MS20426 AD-3 rivets in light structure, I don't mean back shooting but countersink say .016 deep and then shave them? Seems to me it would give the same results as installing NAS 1097 AD-3 if they were available which they are not. The head depth of a -3 is .036 and it would give half of the tensional strength that could be made up for with adding fasteners. The ribs already have about 1.5" spacing on the existing fabric clip holes.
