Just hit 50,000 rivets installed over my career so far

I was cleaning out my toolbox last week and found my old rivet counter from my first year on the line. Added it all up and I'm just shy of 52,000 rivets set with no double counts. Has anyone else ever totaled up a specific task like that and been surprised by the number?

3 comments

3 Comments

wade_anderson9d ago

Flip through any old flight manual and you'll see something wild - the rivet counts are literally the backbone of the airframe's structural integrity (they're basically the skeleton holding everything together). I bet if you lined up all those 52,000 rivets end to end, the string would stretch further than a football field. Never thought about it that way, but each one is a tiny mechanical lock keeping the plane from coming apart mid-flight. Kind of puts the whole "just a rivet" thing in perspective when you realize the stress load each one has to handle over the life of the aircraft.

charlieh749d ago

Small victories add up, that's the funny thing about progress.

sagejackson9d ago

Started tracking my own tiny wins in a notebook last month and it's actually changing how I see my whole day.