Last thing to do before I started adding rivets was to do access panels. You have these panels all over the aircraft and they are usually flush or slightly raised from servicing the aircraft. I do this with vinyl. I have a desktop vinyl cutter that is older now but still works great. The software allows me to easily draw up simple shapes and hit the go button. A couple of minutes later the vinyl is cut and I apply them with tweezers. I never touch the adhesive as oils from my fingers can cause them to raise after applied.
Wing bottom.
H-stab bottom.
Big circular one on the top of the fuselage.
So for the rivets I'm using a 30W soldering iron from Radio Shack (Say WHAT???) where I have removed the solid tip and replaced it with a copper tube. The tube has an ID of 1/16". While this is a bit oversized for this scale, any smaller and the primer will melt into the tube so badly you would have to clean the tip after every rivet. I've tried. So, we have a compromise here. I hold the iron in my non-dominant hand and hold the tip by using tweezers in my dominant hand. For better accuracy, I also close my non-dominant eye at times. In my case, it's odd that my dominant eye is my left eye and my dominant hand is my right. It gets awkward at certain angles but it works well to get the placement.
Flap. Note the slight pencil lines I drew for reference when applying. This is per the reference printout. Always reference the technical drawings.
center flap bottom.
Center flap top.
Flaps completed.
Cowl completed.
So you may be thinking "wait a minute, Joshua! You said you were going for subtle and that does NOT look subtle!" Bear in mind that we still have at least one coat of paint to apply along with a clear coat. These layers will fill these rivets slightly and the capillary action of the liquid will draw some paint/clear coat into the rivets filling them slightly.
My recommendation to anyone trying this for the first time is to take a piece of balsa, glass and prime it, apply rivets using different pressures and durations, and then apply some paint and clear coat. This will clue you in to how you may want to apply your rivets and work out your technique on the final product.
A wise college professor once told me that practice does not make perfect... PERFECT practice makes perfect. You can practice something wrong and you only reinforce something that is just wrong. So you can spend a couple of hours doing all of this only to find out that your end result is not what you want.
I also want to say that this really does not take that much time. I've got about 1.5 hours in on rivet application and I've completed the cowl, flaps, battery hatch, flap servo covers and that is with setting up a time lapse video and dorking around the shop. Whenever I post about this I always get the "I could never have patience to do that" comments. It's not about patience. Ask my wife, I HAVE NONE! It's about the result you get. This results in instant gratification in your build... something rarely observed. You do one line of rivets... taking a minute or two, and it looks amazing! It drives you to do more. I end up focusing on keeping the straight row and even placement and I totally lose myself in this. All of life's distractions melt away and in this moment, I don't have a care in the world and end up with a very gratifying result. Talk about THERAPY!!!
