Note from a Sick Puppy

Cheap tools are no bargain... but about half of my bucking bars and bumping
dollys started out as the head of a large ball peen hammer... or small drilling
sledge. (You can pour the hole full of lead for added mass.)

Most homebuilders aren't aware of the fact that the basic bucking bars are
MEANT to be modified. You'd start with a standard #149 (or whatever), mark the
part you wanted cut away, fill out the ticket and send it over to the machinist
to be modified. It would come back, cut to the required shape with the edges
all smoothed up and the face polished. Then it would go onto the rack
associated with that particular assembly jig, allowing you to reach in through
the access panel, up through the lightening hole and set a particular row of
rivets whilst hanging upside down by your toes.

Funniest thing in the world is to see some RV assembler struggling to set a
rivet with an unmodified 142. But even funnier is the look on their face when
you suggest cutting off that troublesome edge or machining a groove in the face
to clear the adjacent rivet.

A buck is a portable anvil. It's supposed to MATCH the work. One glance at
rack of the things should give you a hint that they can come in ANY size &
shape. While the original fabrication may have used half a dozen modified
bucks, you can't believe how crazy things get when you're talking repair work.
Coming up with a buck that works, without having to dismantle the whole damn
wing, makes string theory sound simple.

Nowadays, the hardest part of making up a buck is finding a suitable lump of
steel without having to take out a second mortage. For me, those Harbor
Freight hammers and sledges have been like money from home :-)

-R.S.Hoover