The Man Who Couldn't Cleco

Needing some high-strength 7/16ths bolts, over the holidays I visited
one of the unofficial RV assembly plants here in San Diego county.
Located in an industrial park adjacent to the airport, the fellow has
set-up permanent fixtures just like a real aircraft factory, allowing
him to assemble an RV with perfect accuracy in remarkably little time.
RV's use NAS bolts to hold the wings on and I'd come a'begging.

He had a new helper, a guy about my age. He was over at the
leading-edge fixture, struggling to install a cleco. From his body
language I guessed the thing was bent. I would have tossed it but he
kept wrestling with it, finally got it in and went on to the next. But
damned if he didn't do the same thing.

I found my friend in his cubby hole, told him what I was after, showed
him what I had to trade. He poked around in his cabinets, found what I
needed and gave me four. Looking past me he saw the fellow working on
the leading edge. Heaved a big sigh and shook his head. The guy was
struggling with yet another cleco.

"Somebody bend all your clecos?" I asked.

My friend gave a bark of laughter. "There's nothing wrong with the
clecos," he said shaking his head. We both watched the guy. He
finally got it in, flexed his hand and started doing an other in the
same awkward manner. We watched him put in three then the fellow must
of sensed he was being watched because he looked up.

"He doesn't know how to cleco," I said in surprise.

"Yeah," my friend agreed. He told me how the fellow was
ex-military, had his ticket and a zillion years experience. "But
nobody ever showed him how to set a cleco," he sighed.

I tucked my bolts in my pocket and got the hell outta there, not
wanting to be around when my friend, who was never in the military and
isn't an A&P, tried to explain to a card-carrying sixty year old A&P
that he doesn't know how to cleco.

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I can't remember how old I was when my dad let me help him rivet.
About nine, I think. Unless you're using PK's, knowing how to
cleco is a required part of knowing how to rivet.

Clecos are spring-loaded temporary fasteners. They get inserted
through the hole where the rivet goes and serve to hold the parts in
alignment for drilling and riveting. Once everything is aligned, you
set rivets in the holes between the clecos, then remove the clecos and
set a rivet in that hole too. The cleco is installed and removed with
a pair of special pliers referred to as forceps in the trade. Because
of the spring, it takes a certain amount of strength to use them. But
not much, as shown by Rosy the Riveter and her million sisters.

To use clecos, you insert the tang into the hole, press the cleco flush
against the visible part then squeeze the handles whilst maintaining a
moderate amount of pressure on the cleco. The pair of shaped wires are
squeezed past the tang and through the hole in the INVISIBLE part with
a slight click, telling you it's okay to relax your grip and go on to
the next one. Doing a panel, you'll have a handful of clecos in one
hand, the forceps in the other, shooting a cleco into every third or
fourth hole at the rate of about one every five seconds or less. Do it
right, it takes just that one, quick squeeze. Since you aren't
trying to hold the cleco compressed, and since you only have to
compress it far enough to let the shaped wires through the hole, it
doesn't take a lot of strength - - even a kid can do it.

What the fellow at the RV factory was doing was putting a cleco into
the forceps then squeezing until the locking wires were fully extended.
Holding it with the spring fully compressed, he was trying to fly the
pair of locking wires through the hole in the two layers of metal,
which he eventually did. But he was spending a minute or more per
cleco. In the time he took to do one row a real tin-bender would have
secured the entire panel.

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I've reached an age where I'm no longer surprised at the things
people don't know but should. My visit to the RV factory showed me
yet another reason why some folks think riveting is hard. And why
others take years to complete a six-month project.

-R.S.Hoover

PS - PK's are hex-head sheet-metal screws fitted with a non-marring
washer. That what we used before clecos came along.