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RV-10 #41814

FlyingHusky

Member
So, after many years of lurking on the forums, taking the sheet metal class, and dreaming, a visit to Oshkosh finally got me to pull the trigger! I ordered my empennage kit at the Van's tent during the show, and got a flight in the demo plane just before the airshow TFR on Friday.

The tailkit arrived yesterday, and I'm starting inventory tonight!
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A huge thank you to DR for making/maintaining/living for this forum! Dues, backpay, and a voluntary late fee for freeloading for so long :)eek: - sorry!) are on the way. Also, thanks to everyone who posts their stories, hard earned lessons, and building motivation here!

I'll (try to) keep this thread up to date with pics and status!
 
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Congrats! Going thru the same process and considering pulling the trigger. In Toledo so best of luck with the build.
 
Congrats! Going thru the same process and considering pulling the trigger. In Toledo so best of luck with the build.

That's not too far... As I get going with the build, and if you're ever in the area, you're welcome to swing by and take a look!
 
Congrats and welcome!

I am right around the corner and also building an RV-10. I am better than half way through the fuselage kit now. First time builder and building very slowly. Feel free to look me up if you have any questions or want to see something up close and completed.
 
RV-10. Trigger Pulled!!

Tyson / Brendon:

RV-10 kit / tools arriving Wednesday. May be good to link up as it looks like we will be going through the process at the same time. I'm in the automotive industry and often at the Big Three so in the area occasionally and lived in Rochester Hills for a few years. Also have a co-worker in Michigan who built a 10 and Kit Fox that just won an award this year at AirVenture. Plans to fly over to Toledo in his 10 (a beauty) and help with the build. Keep in touch.

Mark
 
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End of September update

Over a month of building has gone by according to the log, though I admit it's been somewhat harder to make time for it than I thought it might be. Oh well, at least it's not a race...

I thought I'd give an update though, since the Vertical Stabilizer is done!! More on that later though...

Inventory was complete, with only a few minor items.

Deburring, drilling, cleco-ing, and deburring all went just like the class or the practice kits, they really are good prep, and great for anyone who wants to explore if building is right for them.

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First hole drilled!

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Minor issues arose when working with the counter-sink to make room for a dimpled mating part:
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Wandering holes...
$4 to Van's, and we were back in shape.

The biggest hold-ups were figuring out storage space and understanding what it takes to use the epoxy primer:
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The stuff is extremely tough, and pretty easy to apply once you get used to the gear.

Once priming was done though, the process went pretty quickly from the first rivet:
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to the last:
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I have a few minor bucking bar "witness marks" in the skin that I'm trying to learn to live with. I'm glad to read around the forums that I'm not alone in that. We'll see what they look like after I take some time to get used to the idea. Worst comes to worst though, "the list" shows I can get parts for an all new vertical stabilizer without breaking the bank.

Everything everyone posts here about the curse of perfectionism is true... :rolleyes:
 
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I wonder how many people have done exactly what you have? I did! Demo flight at Oshkosh, ordered empennage. A little over a year later and the empanage is done, QB wings done, fuse in process! It's an awesome adventure!!!
 
Not dead

So... yeah. I had such good intentions to keep this up as I've gone along, but then not only didn't post, but didn't keep up with the nearby builders. I'm sorry, but trying to get back!

There's been a new job, moving my Mom across the country, and a girl that weren't really part of the plan when I first started, but have all been better than I could possibly planned for. She (un-prompted) volunteered and signed up to take the SportAir sheet metal workshop at Oshkosh 2019, and I went out and bought a ring ;). I flew her to Mackinac Island (KMCD) the weekend after Osh in the club 172, popped the question, and she said yes!

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Despite COVID changing all of our plans, we got married last fall and she was officially promoted to co-builder! :D

Even with all of that going on, I've been trying to keep steady progress. We ordered the wings during Osh 2019, and started them last fall. I'll drop a few placeholder posts here to edit for some photos and lessons learned for each of the sub-kits until I'm a little caught up.
 
Rudder

The rudder proceeded pretty straightforward, since it was so similar to the practice kit.

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The one nasty part that I had problems with was having the countersink bit chatter in the holes of the trailing edge angle. This has been discussed widely on the site, that you need to back up the part with a pilot hole, since the countersinks tend to intersect and open the hole.

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Using a backing plate got finicky though. My day job is 3D printing, so I knocked up a quick 3D print that screws to the drill press, tilts the wedge to be perpendicular to the quill, indexes on the lightening holes, and has a pilot to keep the countersink from wandering.

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(Note that when you're using a caged countersink on a drill press, tie or wire the cage to the vertical post to keep it from spinning and hurting you)

This substantially improved the countersink quality, and was faster than having to clamp or hold a backing plate freehand. I know Cleaveland tool sells something similar, but it was a great excuse to fire up the home 3D printer. If there's interest, I'd be glad to share the files.

Rather than get a tube of proseal just for the rudder trailing edge, I decided to rivet everything except the trailing edge, set the rudder aside, and go straight to the elevators. Then I could proseal all the trailing edges and foam ribs at once.
 
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Elevator

I jumped around in the plans and did the elevator before the HS, to keep things similar to the rudder, and to minimize the number of times I needed to proseal. The parts were very similar to the rudder, but you just have to do everything twice. I made sure to make an "L" and "R" column in my plans book and check off each step twice to not lose track of any steps.

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The big intimidating step here is bending metal for the first time (intentionally :rolleyes:). Like a lot of the project, there really isn't too much to it, and I just needed to stop worrying, follow the plans, and dive in:
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If you're priming, you may want to do that before you bend the tab, since I got some overspray onto the outside with the tab sticking up. When you attach the top skin to the bottom skin with pull rivets, be absolutely sure that the rivet is going through both holes on the E-1008A/B stiffeners. I had one case where I set the rivet with the two parts pressed apart, and as hard as it is to rivet these parts, it's even harder to drill out a rivet. (Sorry, no pictures)

With everything but the trailing edges riveted, I set up the rudder and both elevators on three straight work surface edges and the trim tabs and foam ribs between them, so that all of the proseal could be applied and clecoed in one shot:
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With the help of a friend, we were able to get all of the trailing edges applied and clecoed, and the foam ribs for the trim tabs sealed in within the 2 hour work time of the 3.5 oz kit Van's sells. There was quite a lot of sealant left over for that, so if I was to do it again I might buy two of the 1 oz kits and do it in two batches.
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With the smelly part done, buttoning up the elevators and rudder went pretty quickly. I was pleased that rolling the leading edges was much easier than the Van's practice kit for two reasons: the roll radius is quite a bit larger, and the pre-punched holes meant drilling the rivets was much easier than having to tape the two skins together. Bending the skins for the rudder counterweight was much easier than the plans made it seem too, and the holes lined right up on the first time for me.

After a quick inspection of everything by the lead quality inspector:
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...all the tail feathers could head to the basement to be stored until the next steps!
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(Little P-51 to keep them company. :p)
 
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Horizontal Stabilizer

This is where I realized just how big this build is going to get. Learning to position and move the spar without bumping things was a challenge.

Perhaps the most intimidating parts to fabricate are the attach brackets, HS-1008. I overthought it quite a bit, and used the EAA version of Soldworks to create a template that could be pasted on, and then just cut to the lines:
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They came out well, but the paper template was probably overkill.

The other key part to assembling the HS is to get the cradles made. I didn't want to stop and do this, and so struggled with akward, large parts and just made myself frustrated. In the end, it only took 30 mins with a jigsaw and a drill, and everything got so much easier.
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Get some self-adhesive pipe insulation from your local big box (like this) and it provides enough protection in the cradle for when you're riveting skins.

Dimpling the skin holes near the nose can be challenging. Make sure that you've taken the time to build the platforms for the DRDT-2, and holding the parts level will be much easier. In fact, most of my challenges for the HS came from not wanting to be a woodworker, and then I didn't have the necessary support.

After working in the close quarters of the elevator and rudder, the HS was a breath of fresh air. The only really challenging holes/rivets to reach that I recall are inside the angles near the center. This is where you really do need an angle drill attachment, and I finally caved and ordered one.
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Besides those, riveting and finishing the HS was pretty straightforward. It's impressive that the kits are so well designed that everything lines up across such a long distance.

Now that the whole HS is assembled though, it's too big to put down in the basement with the other parts! I'm trying to avoid renting a storage or hangar space until I have to, and I was just finishing up the HS as Osh 2019 was happening, and we ordered the wings during the show.

We made the decision to hold off on the tailcone for now, get the wings done without having to store the tailcone, and then take everything to storage once it was time for the fuselage.
 
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Wing and top skins

The wing kit was delivered in Oct 2019 after ordering at Oshkosh. After the extensive inspection process from the customs department, we could get started:
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Relative to the empennage kit, there seemed to be fewer parts, they were just all bigger.
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It's been said on here before, but wow are these spars come just beautiful. The idea of taking powertools to them sounded insane when I first got them. That goes away really fast though, since you have dozens of nutplates to get ready, and hundreds of countersinks to finish. Especially since the quality problems I've had seem to be from countersinking (too much side pressure, chatter, or depth issues) I was a little in my head over them.
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With Lindsay fresh off the SportAir workshop, she was excited to work on rib deburring and fluting to get us ready for the next steps. Having some help is good, because there are a lot of them!
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Once we got all the ribs ready and primed, it was time to break down the old empennage box that I had been using to control primer overspray. I build the wing stand from Mouser's build log that should help us hold everything through the rest of the wing steps.
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Riveting the ribs to the spars really messed with my head. The drawings don't indicate which side the manufactured head or shop head should go on relative to the spar. Usually, the manufactured head should be on the thinner part to prevent bowing that part, but that requires a double offset set for the gun to go past the ribs on these, and I had so much trouble not making smilies in that orientation. Given that one of the ribs must be riveted in the opposite orientation anyway (the torque tube brackets block anything but a bucking bar), I decided that I was much better able to rivet all the ribs that way without risking damage to the spar. The ribs didn't bow or buckle, and a rivet's strength doesn't change with orientation, so I'm reasonable content with that decision. I'd love to hear other's thoughts though.

Putting the skins was a fantastic moment! It definitely gave both me and Lindsay the feeling of "oh, this is a real flying machine!" There were so many holes to drill though, and I finally realized the #40 drill bit that I had been using was past the end of it's lifetime. One down, many more to go! ;)
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As intimidated as Lindsay was by working on rivets in as visible a place as the top of the wing, the backriveting technique that folks discuss here make easy and pretty work of these rivets. We spent a little while getting the rythm, but after that we were able to really make quick progress. It was so much fun to see the whole smooth surface of the wing once everything was set!
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I have to admit that the build process can be frustrating, exciting, exhausting, and exhilarating, sometimes all at once. But it has been so much fun to see the progress, and we're looking forward to keeping up the pace!
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Note rudder stops

FYI. There is a service bulletin about the rudder stops that you may want to complete prior to assembly...
 
FYI. There is a service bulletin about the rudder stops that you may want to complete prior to assembly...
I saw that one, and just got the parts a week or so ago.

The sad part is that my proudly labelled "first rivet" doesn't get to fly! Lindsay and I talked about making a shadow box for the stop when we pull it off. :p
 
Hi Tyson and Lindsay!

Brand new to Vansairforce and our -10 empennage kit was ordered a couple of weeks ago. Have a ton to learn but wanted to let you know your photos and explanations are very helpful. Keep up the great work! Thanks!

Btw, this is my very first reply on a post and hoping it lands in the correct place. Hahahaha

Bill
 
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