The question at hand has been well covered by the answers so far, you may be
interested in the 'reverse' of the pop vs. solid rivet question.
When I built my Zenith, CH200 from plans I decided, or maybe was talked into
doing the skins in solid flush rivets. In consulting with Chris, he said,
'use one dash smaller in solid rivets", therefore my skins are done in -3
and -4 solid rather than -4 and -5 Avex 'Pop' rivets. It doesn't make the
plane any stronger, or weaker, just different.
When I built the prototype CH801 I used all Avex Pop rivets everywhere
except the structure that called for solid rivets. All hand pulled by the
way and I never found hand pulling to be a particular chore. If the whole
plane was ready to rivet at once I can see where the power puller would be a
godsend but who has that many clecos?

Stew



"Andrew" wrote in message
ups.com...
CC: Zenith Aircraft Company

I have an aeronautical engineer friend retired from McDonnell
Douglas who once was in charge of the Harrier project for the U.S.
team. I respect his opinion which is that pull type, "pop" rivets are
only used on aircraft where a bucked rivet could not possibly be used
or on non-critical, low stress applications.

It is my understanding that the bucked rivet, which has been
used over the years in aluminum aircraft, is stronger than the pull-
type pop rivet. In consideration of the Zenith Aircraft 601 and 701,
how is it that they are using a Textron Brand pull-type rivet? Has
there been some breakthrough in material or design in theses Textron
pop rivets making them comparable to the old style "bucked" rivets?


Thanks,
Andrew