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RV-7 Andrew Z #73658

Bullseye

Well Known Member
Hello, everyone.

Years ago, I started my build, and started documenting it at my builder's log, but love the idea of also documenting it here, for posteriety.

I'll try not to flood the forums with posts.
 
8/21/2009

Welcome to the site, and welcome to the first post. Over the last few weeks I've been starting to contemplate the dream of owning my own aircraft, and I think I am going to pull the trigger on it.

Anyway, I headed over to the Van's Aircraft website and ordered the preview plans for the RV-7/7A.

At $55 (plus shipping), I didn't think this was money poorly spent to get the chance to read through the builder's manual, see a set of 11x17 plans, and start planning out equipment, systems, modifications, etc. Ordering the Preview Plans actually seems like less of a commitment than getting this site set up. I'm not sure what that means about my commitment.

Over the next few months, I'll be getting ready to order the empennage. Now I'm just waiting for the delivery guy...
 
8/27/2009

Last night, the preview plans arrived. They include some welcome pages, an RVator sample, a Van?s accessories catalog, the construction manual, and all the plans from the project printed on 11″ x 17″ paper. They come in a big grey binder.

I sat the binder on the table and stood back and looked at it thinking, ?I bet this binder really doesn?t convey the enormity of what I am getting myself into.? After staring for a few minutes, I decided to dive in. I made it through the introductory pages and contruction techniques sections before heading to bed. I?ll start reading the actual construction manual this week and next.

Here?s the plan: the first time through, I just want an overview. The second time through, I am planning on outlining what tools, supplies, etc. I need and when I need them by adding a sheet behind appropriate pages and keeping a list. We?ll see how that goes. I?m trying not to buy tools needed only for the finish kit before building the empennage. More later?
 
Against some advice, I opted for the eBay purchase of a Rivet gun:

cp4x.jpg


Chicago Pneumatic 4x Rivet Gun Riveter
Model: CP4444 RUTAB
Comes with AN470 3/32", 1/8", 5/32" & 3/16" Rivet Sets
3 Flush Sets
2 Rivet Set Retaining Springs
1 Conavair Aircraft Bucking Bar

August 31 update:

The rivet gun showed up, was in great shape, and after a few tries against the bucking bar, I believe I have determined that it works. How long it will last, however, is another story. I am happy for now that I have a gun that works and that it didn't break the bank.
 
Pull out one of the fuse drawings and look for a busy one, now start at the top and try and decipher every detail, every note, every rivet call out ect, by the time you get here there will be little hand holding and a lot of attention needs to go into these drawings, I would take one or two to work and study them when I had a chance....for hours....and of course all the info on here. Have fun!
 
Post Title: EAA Workbench Completed
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Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:13:31 +0000
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After some planning about space and layout in the garage, I decided to dive into the construction of a workbench. I've heard (and seen on some builder's sites) some of the EAA 1000 Workbenches, and I thought that would be a good first workbench. I'll use that one for awhile before building a second one, hopefully with some improvements.

UPDATE: I built a second one. See the other post for pictures of the second one.
EAA Chapter 1000 Standard workbench plans.
EAA Chapter 1000 Standard workbench instructions.

Here's a couple before pictures of my garage.
I love the lighting. There was a single incandescent bulb in the garage before. Also, I lined the garage doors with some double sided bubble foil I bought off eBay. I would say adding that decreased the temperature in my garage in the middle of the summer by 10 degrees. Good investment.
workbench-construction-0081.jpg

I also installed pegboard along the entire NW wall and on the half of the SE wall that wasn't finished. The tools are just thrown up on the wall for now; I promise to get organized before I purchase the empennage kit.
workbench-construction-009.jpg

Some shelves I built early after moving in for more space. Look closely, and you can see my cornhole boards supporting some old laptop speakers. When hooked up to my iPhone, they are loud enough to hear through my hearing protection (which I use religiously with power tools).
workbench-construction-010.jpg

Smaller shelves on the SE wall (and more pegboard). Good for tools.
workbench-construction-011.jpg
 
Here's the top of the workbench (you build from the top down). Instead of 5 feet (60"), I decided to do 6 feet (72"). I added another rib (airplane talk!) which makes the spacing 14.1" on center (Instead of the ~15" mentioned in the EAA plans).
workbench-construction-013.jpg

The legs and leg doublers got cut and mocked up. And no, I am not working barefoot.
workbench-construction-015.jpg

It's actually starting to look like a workbench.
workbench-construction-017.jpg

After adding the other leg doublers, I fastened some 200 lb locking casters on the bottom. I stuck to the plans on height (33") because I knew the casters would add a few inches. My sawhorses were built to 36", and I am happy with that height. The finished work bench is pretty close to 36".
workbench-construction-018.jpg

Flipped and looking like a workbench.
workbench-construction-021.jpg

Then I cut some Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) for the benchtop, overhanging each side by about 3". I've been told to do this so I can clamp airplane parts to the bench more easily. Figuring I'd be replacing the top a few times during the project, I secured it down with some countersunk screws. Hopefully I'll get the vise bolted down in the next few days.
workbench-construction-022.jpg


Is this where I say, "Ta Daaaa..."?
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Post Title: More tools arrive
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Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:57:04 +0000

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A few days ago I ordered some more tools from the Yard. Acquisitions include:

A Hand Squeezer
11 Piece Squeezer set
Edge deburring tool
Air gun (not RV related, but for the shop anyway).

Today, I think I'm going to build a small storage rack (2x4 with some holes drilled into it) for my rivet and squeezer sets. I built one the other night that I wasn't happy with, so I'm going to try again. Here are a few pictures from the effort. Basically I laid out all the things that I thought could roll off the workbend when I needed them (plus the bucking bar, that won't roll). Then I drilled the 2x4 to correct size, making sure to be sloppy with the drill (I want there to be some play for a loose fit).
Here they are laid out.
pictures-from-saturday-sep-5-017-medium.jpg


After sanding, priming, and putting the sets into my holder, here is the final product. The space to the right is reserved for drill bits and dimple die sets. (I originally stole the idea from someone talking about drill bits. They said they always grabbed the wrong one, lost them, etc.) This is my version of the solution.
pictures-from-saturday-sep-5-022-medium.jpg


I think I'll put 3 or 4 of the most commonly used bits to the right along with some dimple die sets. I like it so far. We'll see if I just leave it on the workbench or actually mount it somewhere. Maybe somehwere attached to the workbench, or maybe on the wall by the compressor. I'll think about it.
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Post Title: Ordered some more tools. Again.
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Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:40:03 +0000
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Ordered some more tools today. I'll update the post when they come in. I've been ordering from The Yard, given the price advantage. Until I run into bad quality, I'll probably just continue along that route. I'm sure some of you may have some comments about that.

Here's the list. So far, project costs is $596 dollars. I have a spreadsheet I keep with estimated cost for each tool, then my actual costs, including shipping (free if order is over $100 with the yard). Then I calculate how much I save for each tool or item. I'm estimating I've saved about $678 by shopping around vigorously.

K Series Spring Cleco 3/32" (0-1/4")
K Series Spring Cleco 1/8" (0-1/4")
Cleco Pliers with Grip
#30 High-Speed Jobber Bit - 135 degee Split Point
#40 High-Speed Jobber Bit - 135 degee Split Point
Auto Center Punch Large
Safety Glasses Clear
Plastic Spring Clamp Small
Plastic Spring Clamp Medium
12" Drill Bit High Speed #30 AED
12" Drill Bit High Speed #40 AED
Dimple Die Set 3/32" Male/Female
Dimple Die Set 1/8" Male/Female

9/18/09 Update: The above ordered tools arrived, and I am again happy with their quality. I added some more spaces to the right of my rivet/squeezer/dimple set tool holder of sorts. Here are a few pics of the tools and their new home.
A closeup of the first of many clecos.
new-workbench-0121.jpg

Clecos and Pliers. I sprung for the pliers with handles. High class, huh?
new-workbench-0101.jpg

DRILL BITS!
new-workbench-009-e15186314405471.jpg

Everything in the order.
new-workbench-0031.jpg

And a punch.
new-workbench-0111.jpg


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Post Title: Purchased Practice Kit from GBI
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Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:25:25 +0000

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I am a lucky guy. I live about an hour away from George and Becki Orndorff of GeoBeck, Inc. See their website at fly-gbi.com. Last night, after a wonderful day of flying a Cessna 310H to Gilliam McConnell and having lunch at the Pik-N-Pig, I drove down to see George and Becki and purchase a practice kit. After graciously forgiving me for bothering them on a Sunday evening, George showed me their RV-7A (N289GB). It was immaculate. I asked George about a few things, the answers to most of which were expected. Example: Why shouldn't I build? ("You should!") Do you love it? ("Absolutely!") Everyone I ask has nothing but wonderful things to say about their RV. Sounds like I need to go ahead start!

Two of his answers were more interesting. I asked him about tip-up versus slider, noting that everyone seems to like what they have. His simple response: "I've built both, and the slider is better. I won't build another tip-up." I was sold, but I pushed to find out why. Basically, he explained that the slider was more sturdy, cooler (both hero-pilot style and temperature style) and easier to build. Easier to build? That's contrary to what I've heard, but George is obviously trustworthy in the RV expertise area, so I'll take is word for it.

The other answer was to "What modifications should I do to the RV-7?"

He told me to put the RV-8 rudder on the RV-7 (instead of the RV-7/9, larger "uglier" rudder). I haven't seen pictures side-by-side (to determine if I agree with the ugly part), but George said the larger rudder on the 7/9 is for spin recovery. I'll need to think about this some more. I am not too concerned about spin recovery (he said it only improved the recovery from 1.5 turns to 1 turn), so I think the choice will come down to aesthetics, and the fact that the trailing edge of the 8 rudder is bent, while the 7/9 rudder is double-flush riveted.

Anyway, I got home with the kit, and had to join the girlfriend for dinner, so all I did was unpack the kit, and lay it out nicely so I can take pictures tomorrow before I get started.

Most importantly, the kit is a Van's kit (some other builders were wondering what the difference was), but also comes with GBI's sheet metal tools DVD. $55, which, with some subtraction skills, puts the DVD at $20. I watched the DVD last night, it runs about 60 minutes, and was really helpful with introducing me to some of the tools and techniques I am going to become intimately familiar with over the course of the project. He also walks through the actual construction of the practice kit. It's worth the $20. I also bought the pre-punched empennage kit videos. Those should come in handy soon enough.

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Post Title: Started on the Practice Kit
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Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:54:10 +0000

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Today, I started on the practice kit. The directions point back to (and the kit actually includes) sections 3 and 5 of the construction manual. I threw my extra copies away, I'm going to just keep the ones from the Preview Plans I have.

The kit tells you to make some useful tools before starting. I found 3: A wooden hand seamer, a stand for your practice kit (basically a place to clamp the front spar so the skins stand up vertically) and an assembly with an 11 inch long piece of angle riveted (with various rivets) to two more pieces of 2.25" x 11" aluminum sheet. I'm not sure if this is a useful tool or just something to rivet before starting the pretend control surface. Hmm... I'll make it nonetheless for the practice. I'm going to pass on the hand seamer, but get started on the other two.

Interesting note, the directions tell you that if you don't have dents, scratches, and mistakes on your practice kit, you aren't doing it right. Apparently, they want me to get out all of the mistakes now before I start on the real airplane. Right...

Here's a picture of everything that comes in the kit.
Everything that comes in the kit.
practice-kit-001.jpg

Closeup of the Hardware><
practice-kit-002.jpg

Closeup of the skins.
practice-kit-003.jpg


I didn't get very far on the practice kit. I made it through step one, which is to drill the weird angle assembly in 24 places for the appropriate flush and blind rivets of various sizes. Even the practice kit is going to be slow going. I did learn a ton, though.
<ol>
<li>Everything is so tiny. I've been staring at picture on all the build sites, thinking things were bigger. The -3-3 rivets are TINY! The skins are a lot thinner than I thought they would be.</li>
<li>Don't take the blue off the skins if you don't want to scratch the skins. I thought my workbench was clean, but after deburring one of the small sheets, there were small pieces of aluminum everywhere. I slid one of the sheets on the table and scratched the **** out of it.</li>
<li>My cheap clamps are nice, but not perfect. I'll need to get some higher quality ones. Also, I need to use the duct tape on the clamp face trick. They scratched the **** out of the sheet, too.</li>
<li>I had to measure, mark, and drill the holes. No big deal, but I just noted that they really have you jump right in. I drilled into a spare piece of MDF I had laying around, but I didn't drill far enough, so the clecos don't have a fantastic grip. Oh well.</li>
<li>I played around with pressure on the bit while drilling. I learned as a kid that when you have the spiral piece of metal coming off in one piece as you drill, that is the right pressure (which wasn't that much more than the air drill itself). Anyone have any other advice?</li>
<li>I learned that building is not going to be a piece of cake, but is going to be a lot of fun. That's kind of a fluffy statement, but it's true.</li>
</ol>
Here's the picture of what I got done last night.
Step one. Drill appropriate holes. Don't make fun of my erroneous markings. The instructions said I have to make mistakes on this practice kit, and not the real airplane, so I made sure there were some errors.
practice-kit-005.jpg


Also, I had to cleco the skin to the end ribs. I don't know why, but I wanted to do it. I promise not to skip steps in the future.
Top skin cleco'd to the end ribs.
practice-kit-006.jpg


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Post Title: Finished the first assembly in the Practice Kit
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Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:04:28 +0000

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Tonight, I finished the first assembly in the practice kit. Only a few notes, and some lessons learned.

Big lessons learned:

?The soldering iron leaves a mark if you aren't careful, be gentle, and go slow enough that it melts the vinyl.
?Deburring holes was very easy, even with just an oversize drill bit.
?Buy a nice countersink. I faked it with a drill bit, and the results will not be acceptable on the real project.
?Less scratches tonight, but still a lot. I need to get some scotchbrite pads and self-etching primer to rehearse the prep and priming phases.
?I want to experiment with priming before dimpling. I've heard people have had good results (said another way, no bad results due to priming a weirdly angled surface in the dimple.)

I got out the soldering gun and tried my hand at removing the vinyl covering in a straight line.
practice-kit-9-29-09-001.jpg

MY FIRST RIVET. AN426AD3-3. It is so beautiful.
practice-kit-9-29-09-002.jpg

Three more rivets. I squeezed and bucked with flush and cupped sets. I am using a 4X gun, which means I had the pressure all the way down to 20 psig. It worked really well for the AD3s, but I might need more pressure for the AD4-4s.
practice-kit-9-29-09-006.jpg

The final (and blurry) product. It's probably for the best that you can't see the fingerprints and scratches on it.
practice-kit-9-29-09-007.jpg


I am very happy that I did this part of the practice kit first. Now I know how to proceed on the real kit, and nothing with drilling, deburring, dimpling, countersinking, or riveting will be new to me, even on the practice kit. (I plan on displaying the practice kit prominently, so it better look good.)

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Post Title: Practice Kit - Stiffeners and Skins
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Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:08:12 +0000

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I started on the real practice kit today. First, you have to make the stiffeners. Easy as pie, except the stock I got in my kit was cut short by about 1/2" in each case. I got two shorter sections, the kit shows it comes as one long piece. Maybe George gave me some extra that was laying around. No biggie, but that's why in the pictures below the stiffeners are different lengths. Then I edge prepped the stiffeners, ribs, spar, and skins. I also practiced using the soldering iron some more, with pretty decent results. Here's a shot of the stiffeners and skins ready to match-drill.
Skins and stiffeners ready for match-drilling.
practice-kit-9-30-09-001.jpg


And the stiffeners match-drilled to the skins...
Match-drilled and cleco'ed.
practice-kit-9-30-09-002.jpg


After this, I assembled the skeleton, matchrilled both skins to the ribs, spar, and trailing edge wedge, then disassembled everything. It got late, so I stopped after getting all the holes deburred. Here's a shot of the skeleton clamped together, ready for drilling.
One of the skins, primed and de-blued. Stiffeners, doublers, trailing edge wedge, spar, and ribs ready to rivet.
practice-kit-10-1-09-001.jpg


<div>
Stiffeners, doublers, trailing edge wedge, spar, and ribs ready to rivet.
practice-kit-10-1-09-002.jpg


</div>
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Post Title: Practice Kit - Riveting
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Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:45:28 +0000

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I started riveting today. I got the skeleton riveted together and back-riveted then stiffeners to the skins.
practice-kit-10-2-09-001.jpg

practice-kit-10-2-09-002.jpg


I'll try to finish up tonight, but I need to figure out a way to dimple the ribs near the trailing edges. I should probably follow the directions and fabricate the special dimpling tool described in the plans. Off to the hardware store for some steel...

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Post Title: Practice Kit - Finished
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Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:55:40 +0000

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Sunday morning, I managed to finish off the practice kit. Here are the pictures.
Here are the skins riveted to the spar. Notice how I didn't make the jig to hold it to the table.
practice-kit-10-4-09-001.jpg

Another shot of the skins riveted to the spar.
practice-kit-10-4-09-004.jpg

The finished product.
practice-kit-10-4-09-006.jpg


Overall, I am happy with the results. I don't think they are airplane worthy (I don't know if I will ever be happy with the final product), but I feel like I am ready to start on the real kit. All of the riveting came out nice, but some of the other aspects (dimpling, countersinking, edge rolling) are still not up to par.

Biggest lesson so far:

1) Go slow, take your time, read the plans, and be careful.
2) The skins don't look too bad, but I have a feeling there will be too many scratches to polish the final airplane. I'm planning on paint anyway, so I should be okay.
3) Other things, I want to acquire some of the tank dimple dies for the understructure. Some of the skin to rib seams didn't sit as nicely as I wanted, and I think the slightly deeper dimples in the ribs will accept the dimple in the skin better.
4) Buy a bigger backriveting plate. I just have a 1 x1/2 x 36 inch steel stock. I had to be really careful to keep the rivets lined up. With a wider plate, I wouldn't' have had to move the skin around, which caused...
5) ...scratches in the skin. Next time I removed the vinyl from the skin, I am going to immediately replace it with painters tape. All of the scratches on the skin are where I removed the vinyl. This can be prevented.
6) Priming. Using the self-etching primer is so easy, I think I may do all of the interior skin next time ( I only primed the rivet lines, where two pieces of metal would meet this time).
7) I need a no-hole yoke for the rivets near the rear of the trailing edge. I managed with a thin bucking bar, but I didn't like the results. A no-hole would make this a non-issue.

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Post Title: More dreaming of paint schemes
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Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:45:40 +0000
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Well, I haven't posted in a week or two, because I am waiting for my airplane piggy bank to grow enough to buy an empennage kit. In the mean time, I have been practicing drilling out rivets on the practice kit and dreaming of some more paint schemes. Here are some of my current thoughts about what I would like to end up with. If any of these are your pictures and you would like credit (or for me to take them down), please let me know, and I will kindly oblige. Otherwise, take the compliment.

At this point, I am contemplating doing a little polishing on my airplane. have to paint all the fiberglass, though, so maybe black would look good...

Looks like this first airplane is owned by William R Cloughley. Well done, Mr. Cloughley.
N18LC - Right><
paintschemeideas-11.jpg

N18LC - Right Rear Quartering><
paintschemeideas-10.jpg


Dec 25th update:

I bet some of you noticed I ordered 3/16" clecos instead of 3/32" When the box arrived, I was sure that the Yard had made a mistake, but I quickly realized the mistake was mine. After some research, I figured out I won't need that many 3/16" clecos, so it owuld be best if I could exchange them. Luckily, I was headed to Wichita the very next day for a wedding, and the Yard is conveniently located in Wichita.

Note: It is possible to bring a bag of 50 3/16" clecos in a carry-on through airport security. Be prepared: the TSA will ask you why you are trying to bring bullets on the airplane. Ask me how I know.

When I was able to sneak away from the wedding festivities and make it to the Yard, the guy behind the counter didn't have any problem with me exchanging for the right size. He even pointed out that I might want to go with used. Skeptically, I inspected a bag of 100 used 3/32" clecos, and was satisfied with their quality. (Only saw a few with pro-seal on them.) at $0.25 a piece, I saved a bunch of money. Ha.

January update: Later, I saw that some of the clecos are stubby clecos, and some are unusable. I've gone through every one and thrown out about 10% of them. I will probably stick with new clecos from now on. If nothing else, they look better in the pictures for you guys.

Anyway, let me get back to my Christmas. Oh, and Merry Christmas.
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Post Title: Automatic Compressor Drain Kit
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Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:23:55 +0000
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This afternoon (after a lot of research), I stopped by Harbor Freight and bought the Automatic Compressor drain kit.
Avery tool order that came in. Wuhoo! Apparently I had already put away the pop rivet dimplers. Sorry. They come in a little plastic baggy about the size of the drill stop bags with about 6 extra nails in it.
12-31-09-087-large.jpg

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Post Title: Picked up empennage, inventoried
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Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:45:55 +0000
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Well, I'm officially a homebuilder.

After checking FedEx's tracking website, I saw that they tried to deliver the boxes on Christmas Eve, then again on the 28th and today, the 29th. I arrived home yesterday from the Keys around 5pm, so while enroute, I called fedex to have hen hold the packages at the local facility.

When I got to FedEx, they found the smaller package, but insisted it was the only one. "Hmm, usually they ship them together. Guy said, "if there were two, there would be a '1 of 2' on the label."

"You sure? Van's charged me for shipping both packages." (Although, you may remember that the tracking number online indicated only one package.)

"Positive."

Huh.

When I got home, I checked the fedex exception slip on the door and sure enough, the driver indicated there were two packages. I drove back out to the FedEx place and pointed this out.

"Oh yeah, we saw another (bigger) package with 'high dollar aircraft parts" on it, is that yours?"

Grrr.

He continued. "You should have said something when you were here before."

Grrr.

I can't complain too much, they tried to get me my tail kit on Christmas eve, so thank you to FedEx. Also, I'll give Van's some credit for beating their estimate.

Anyway, I got them home. Because I was gone for the last week, we did Christmas tonight. (Girlfriend, Jack (black lab/Italian greyhound), and Ginger (German shephard/American staffordshire terrier) all exchanged gifts.)

I slapped a bow on each kit, and Jack gave me one, and Ginger gave me the other. Thanks, pups, for the gifts. (How did you guys wrap those boxes without any thumbs? "It was ruff," Jack said. Ha. Dog joke.) I managed to get away with this because the girlfriend got a trip to a Central American country from Ginger, so the airplane was not a big deal.

Here are the two boxes on my workbench.
Boxes on the workbench.
12-29-09-001-large.jpg


Here's the stuff from the 1st subkit.
1st subkit unpacked><
12-29-09-003-large.jpg


And the second subkit.
Second subkit><
12-29-09-004-large.jpg


Here are the fiberglass tips (I can't remember if this is the third subkit or not.)
Fiberglass empennage tips.
12-29-09-005-large.jpg


And then all the paper from the whole kit. (I left the boxes out of the picture.)
That's a lot of paper.
12-29-09-010-large.jpg


I'm counting the inventory hours as build hours, because of the organization and learning part. Some people don't count them, but I think it is an important part of the process. 1.5 hours.
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Post Title: Rear Spar, Front Spar
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Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:47:16 +0000
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Well, I finally started today. First thing I did was break the corners of the HS-609PP. I used my grinder, which did a good job, but got clogged with aluminum pretty quickly. I think my next big investment will be a bandsaw.
The requisite shot of before and after rounding edges.
12-30-09-001-large.jpg


Then I removed the blue vinyl from the rear spars (HS-603PP) and clecoed the 609s to the 603s. To do this, I needed to increase the radius of the 609s that rests against the web/flange intersection of the 603s. No big deal. Once I did this, they fit great. I didn't finish the edge prep on the 609s, I'll do this prior to priming everything. Then, I match-drilled all the holes, including enlarging the HS-708/HS-603PP (inboard rib attachment) holes to #21.
Rear spar reinforcements clecoed to Rear spar channels. It's starting to look like an airplane? Ha.
12-30-09-002-large.jpg


It was a little late to be running the power tools, so instead, I marked the bend lines on the HS-702 front spar channels. This takes some careful measurement and marking, so take your time.
I also marked the bend lines on the front spar channels. (HS-702)><
12-30-09-011-large.jpg


Then, I strayed from the plans a little. They have you use a 1/8" bit to create a notch relief hole, then enlarge to 1/4" using a unibit. I used snips and then a file. The second one turned out better than the first (which I hear is pretty common on everything in the project), and I had some trouble making them look perfect. (I know, things don't have to be perfect, but it bugs me, anyway.) Biggest lesson learned: cut the flange in the correct place first, then unbend the flange to give you more material to work with. You can see in the top one in the picture below that I didn't do this, and had to taper into the bend relief notch. (The bottom one below is better, nice straight line back to the relief notch.)
Finished HS-702 shaping with bend relief notches.
12-31-09-082-large.jpg


Then I bent HS-710, HS-714, and both HS-702s. I created a cardboard template using trigonometry. I took the tangent of 6 degrees. Which is a little over 0.1. (This means fromthe bend line, for every inch you go laterally, the angle will be just over 0.1 inches up.) That's a little hard to measure, so I took the inverse (to figure out how many inches laterally I need to go for 1 inch up), and got just over 9.5 inches. I have a calibrated 6 inch ruler, so I divided by two, and ended up with mike's numbers; 4.75" over, and 0.5" up.

Now that I have my template for six degrees, let's get bending.

After trying a few methods in the vise, I ended up just lining up my bend line with the edge if the table, holding a wooden block over the piece, and putting a little pressure on it. If you go slowly, you can get 6 degrees pretty dead nuts on. I laid everything on top of eachother, and it all lined up very nicely.

Lastly, I finished the front spar section by dimpling the HS-702s, and countersinking (first ever countersink!) the HS-710 and HS-714 for the center two holes only. Remember, flush rivets go on the aft side here, so the countersink and the male dimple die go from back to front.
Countersunk HS-710 and HS-714, dimpled HS-702.
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A solid 5.5 hours today.
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Post Title: More HS work
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Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:16:04 +0000
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First thing in the morning, I had to run some errands, one of which included a stop by Harbor Freight to exchange my Automatic Compressor Drain Kit that had a crack in it. While I was there, I used two coupons. One, for a free tape measure, the other for almost half off a 6" digital caliper. Walked out the door with a new caliper, tape measure, and an exchanged drain kit for $10. Can't beat that.
Free tape measure at Harbor Freight. Also a coupon for 1/2 off a $20 digital caliper.
12-31-09-085-large.jpg


I went ahead and scotchbrited all the HS ribs. I was sick of the aluminum dust on my hands during scotchbriting, so I took these inside and did them with warm water (only reason for warm was so my hands didn't get cold) in the kitchen sink. Worked well with a lot less dust. (Also, I think showing pictures of my work with finished pieces looks a lot better than the original parts, which are all shiny and finger-printy after my grubby hands work with them.)
Surface prepped HS ribs.
12-31-09-086-large.jpg


Then, the directions have you cleco the left skeleton together.
It looks like an airplane! Kind of.
12-31-09-088-large.jpg


Then you get to cleco on the skin (wuhoo!). I had trouble with HS-707 here. the very tip of the rib kind of caught on the skin (vinyl); I had to really work to get it back into position and clecoed. you can see here I clecoed every hole on the HS-707.
Clecoed on the left HS-601 skin.
12-31-09-092-large.jpg


Then I inserted the HS-404 (front inboard) and HS-405 (rear inboard) ribs and clamp. Here, you can see the HS-405 clamped.
Inserted HS-404 and HS-405 for match drilling.
12-31-09-093-large.jpg


Then I match-drilled the HS-405 to the HS-601PP (skin). I didn't do the top or bottom forward most hole, because I seem to be having edge distance troubles on the HS-405 and HS-702 spar. I checked everything and it seems to be right. I checked some other build sites to see if other people have run into this, no one mentioned it. Right as I was going to post a question on the Prev | Next
 
Post Title: Finished drilling the HS
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Sat, 02 Jan 2010 03:24:24 +0000
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Short, but productive day.

It was Jack's birthday today (he turned 3), so I ran out to Chik-Fil-A to get him is once a year human food treat. A chicken biscuit. Of course, Ginger needed one too ("so she doesn't feel left out") and so on, which meant my girlfriend and I also got biscuits. Here are Jack and Ginger.
Jack and Ginger (Jack's on the right) on the beach last summer. Happy Birthday Jack. You're 3 now. Start acting like it.
oak-island-june-2009-035-large.jpg


Anyway, after the birthday festivities (a.k.a. Jack and Ginger inhaling their biscuits), I managed a couple hours on the project. Here, I clamped HS-404 in place after having first marked holes and drilled #40 pilot holes in the aft flange. The instructions have you mark and drill pilot holes in the HS-405, but why drill from aft to forward, hoping you don't run into edge distance problems when you could drill from forward to aft? For the outboard holes, I did use the HS-405 for pilot holes. You'll see.
HS-404, with two pilot holes marked and drilled prior to mock-up.
1-1-10-001-large.jpg


Then, I matchdrilled the rest of the HS-404, which had been clamped in place in the above pictures. After that, I finished match-drilling the rest of the skin for the right side. After you finish and pull the skin off, you can drill the remaining HS-702 holes using the HS-710 and HS-714 angles as guides. Here are the last six holes drilled after pulling off the skin.
Finished drilling HS-710 and HS-714 after removing the skin.
1-1-10-002-large.jpg


After the skins are pulled off, I'm ready to start prep for final assembly.
After match rilling both skins and finishing the HS-710/HS-714 to HS-702 holes, The skeletons lay ready to disassemble, deburr, dimple, edge finish, surface prep, and prime.
1-1-10-006-large.jpg


2.0 hours today. Not bad.
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Post Title: LH skin dimpling, some HS riveting
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Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:19:53 +0000
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This morning, I snuck out into the garage and starting dimpling the left hand HS skin with my new (borrowed) c-frame.

After thinking about the setup and trying a few things, I quickly realized I wanted the female dimple die underneath and the male dimple die on top.

I set up the skin on 3 2x4s (I haven't built a dimpling table yet because I wanted to see how I liked doing it) which was less than a 1/4" above the female dimple die. Then I basically moved the c-frame around until the male dimple die was lined up (this way I don't scratch the skin with a male dimple die while trying to locate the hole from underneath, like some builders do). Then I held the male dimple die down into the hole and...WHACK! Perfect dimple. I am far happier with these dimples than the pop-rivet dies. Keep in mind here, I am dimpling with the standard spring-back dies here, not the tank (deeper) dies.
Here's my setup for now. I like this because you move the c-frame, not the skin.
1-9-10-001-large.jpg


After finishing each row, I put a line of blue painters tape on the outside of the skin. I learned on the practice kit to protect whatever I didn't want to scratch. The tape will come off just before riveting.
Blue tape on the outside of the skins. Hooray protection!><
1-9-10-003-large.jpg


After I finished both sides, I scuffed up the internal lines, cleaned, then primed the inside of the left HS skin.
Here's the inside of the left skin, all suffed up, ready to prime.
1-9-10-002-large.jpg


While I waited for skins to dry, I riveted together HS-705, HS-702, and HS-704, but only the middle two holes. The rivets didn't bend over, per se, but set a little crooked. (My fault for not keeping the squeezer steady.) I drilled them out perfectly, and then decided shooting them might be a better idea. After practicing with a piece of scrap for a minute, I actually ended up shooting these rivets. They look really good.
Shop head picture. Rivets 7 and 8.
1-9-10-005-large.jpg

Machined head picture. This just looks good.
1-9-10-006-large.jpg


First thing after mounting the scotchbrite wheel, I finished the edges of HS-710 and HS-714 with the wheel. So easy. I should have ordered the wheel at the beginning. (Serves me right for trying to piece together a toolkit instead of buy one all at once. I thought the scotchbrite wheel was a luxury. It is not.) Then I countersunk the holes in HS-710 and HS-714. I had done this before, but sized the countersinks perfectly for a AN426AD4- rivet. When you cleco the dimpled HS-702 front spar to either piece, the spar doesn't sit flush, so you have to enlarge the countersinks.)
Enlarge countersinks. Check.
1-9-10-008-large.jpg


Anyway, I put in a few minutes of right HS skin deburring, scuffing, and dimpling before coming in for the day. (Notice I decided to scuff the interior of the right skin before dimpling? It's easier to scuff the skin without all of the dimples getting in the way. It's these little things that will save me time the second time around.)

Let's see. 9am to 11am, 2pm to 4pm. 4 hours today.
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Post Title: Left HS Riveting
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Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:00:44 +0000
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Today I started left HS skin riveting.

The big takeaway is that I hate squeezing AN470AD4- rivets. For some reason (it's gotta be user error), I keep bending them over. Finally, I broke out the gun and got some rivets set. I think I may need a better bucking bar. The fact I set some really nice rivets with the crappy bar means that a tungsten bucking bar will probably be my favorite tool. Anyway, first picture is me riveting HS-710 and HS-714 to the left HS-702 front spar. You can see the two rivets in the upper right side of the picture needed to be drilled out. Oh wait. They all needed to be drilled out. See how I put the manufactured side on the thicker material here? Wrong, drill them out. That's one of the reasons I drilled out 11 rivets today. I didn't get all of these reset, but I did get the ones that would be inaccessible once I started riveting on the skin. In the picture below, I set the six behind the HS-404 rib, and six of the ten in front (lower right) of the HS-404 rib. A few of those bent over again, so I called it quits on this part and moved on. I'll have to drill out more rivets tomorrow. Ugh.
Squeezed, and then drilled out HS-710 and HS-714.
1-10-10-large.jpg


Next, I started some skin riveting, with the HS-707. You can see my first two skin riveting shop heads.
My first two flush rivets (well, first two on the skin).
1-10-10-1-large.jpg


Finished up the top, and then riveted the bottom (except for the last bottom skin rivet, the bottom 1/8" cleco prevented the bucking bar from getting in there, so I'll set this after I remove HS-708). The second and third rivets on the bottom need to be replaced. They are probably okay for such a non-structural area, but I am a perfectionist.
After riveting the top and bottom skins (to HS-707). Except the most aft skin rivet on HS-707. (See the lower 2nd and 3rd rivet from the right? Those shop heads are too small. I'll need to replace those.)><
1-10-10-3-large.jpg


Drilled them out, and replaced them. They look much better now.
Replaced with AD3-4 instead of AD3-3.5. I don't know why these needed longer rivets when every other rivet looked okay.?
1-10-10-4-large.jpg


Next, I finished riveting HS-710 and HS-714 (front spar reinforcement angles) to HS-702 (front spar). Shop heads on the thicker material.
HS-710 and HS-714 successfully riveted to the front spar.
1-10-10-5-large.jpg


Here's a closeup of the two replaced rivets.
Another closeup of the HS-707 rivets.
1-10-10-6-large.jpg


Next, they have you cleco in the front spar and cleco HS-708 (what I am calling the middle aft rib) into place. (Ha, the Yard gave me a long reach 3/32" cleco in my bag of used clecos. You can see it on the upper left.)
Clecoed the front spar and HS-708 in place, ready to blind rivet.
1-10-10-7-large.jpg


One of the LP4-3 blind rivets set. I had to grind down my cheapo National Tool and Equipment blind rivet puller. Not hard, took about 5 minutes, and ended up working really nicely in here.
First blind rivet on the project. (I think it's an LP4-3.)><
1-10-10-8-large.jpg


And all three complete.
All three blind riveted. Time to move on.
1-10-10-9-large.jpg


Here, I got a shot of my painter's tape covered bucking bar just after bucking the lower tip rib rivet.
Riveting HS-706 (tip rib) to HS-702 (front spar). I think I could have squeezed these if I had unclecoed the skin a little, but I was feeling good about shooting them, and I'm not a fan of squeezing AD4- rivets since the "let's have fun squeezing and drilling out 9 rivets" fiasco this morning.
1-10-10-10-large.jpg
 
I like these rivets. They gave me no problems.
Done!><
1-10-10-11-large.jpg


Next, I started setting the skin to front spar rivets. I shoudl elaborate on my technique a little here. I would remove a cleco, put in the AN426AD3-3.5 rivet, put some blue painters tape over the rivet, then shoot and buck it. The tape did wonders to protect the skin from any blemishes caused by the flush rivet set. I taught myself this trick after scratching the **** out of the practice kit. (note: I wish the practice kit had more AD4- rivets in it.) Anyway, these all look sufficient...
The first skin to spar rivets on the top.
1-10-10-12-large.jpg


I managed the rest of the HS702 (front spar) and HS-708 (aft middle rib) to skin rivets. There were 42 of them. On each side. I wrapped my bucking bar in blue painters tape to protect the skeleton from dings and scratches. Worked like a charm. I'll replace all of the tape then next time I have a big rivet day.
I wrapped my bucking bar in tape. Here is the result after 113 rivets today. (Well, 124, I had to drill out 11 rivets.)><
1-10-10-13-large.jpg


Here are some after shots. The HS is upside down, so even though this is the left HS, we are looking at the tip rib here.
All done. I may go back and see if there are any underdriven rivets in here. I was being rushed back into the house for dinner after I finished riveting.
1-10-10-14-large.jpg


Looking at HS-708 and the blind rivets holding it to HS-702 (front spar) and HS-707 (middle tip rib). It looks like the spar is scratched here, but it is really just a couple scuffs from my knuckles and the handle from the blind rivet puller.
More after pictures.
1-10-10-15-large.jpg


This is looking toward the center of the airplane (toward HS-405, aft inboard rib)
And again.
1-10-10-16-large.jpg


No closeups, because I didn't clean off the skin yet, but still, it looks so nice. Also, I need to remember to stop dripping air tool oil all over my workbench.
Hooray for a riveted skin. It looks like it might fly one day.
1-10-10-17-large.jpg


After I got all the riveting done, I started peeling off the blue vinyl from the interior. The primer on the vinyl flaked off as I peeled, and it got everywhere. I don't know how to prevent this, though, and after a quick sweep with the vacuum, it looked wonderful again. Before I close up, I'll probably wipe off the unprimed aluminum with acetone or similar to make sure I have all the fingerprints (oils) off.
Removed the blue vinyl on the interior. Me likey.
1-10-10-002-large.jpg


I also got a half hour of right HS skin deburring tonight. We'll see.

Noon to 1pm, 1:30pm to 4:30pm, then 9-9:3pm while watching the UNC/VT game. Go heels. 4.5 very productive hours.
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Post Title: Squeezed more left HS Rivets
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Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:59:20 +0000
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I got some rivets squeezed tonight, which means it was a good day. All of the rivets tonight were either HS-601PP (skin) to HS-706 (tip rib) or HS-601PP (skin) to HS-404/405 (inboard ribs). All squeezable.

The plans have you skip 5 rivets on the top only, but the clecos were doing such a good job of holding the skin off of the table, I decided to skip those rivets on the bottom, too. Also, I only squeezed every other rivet on the tip until I can get the rear spar riveted in. Then, I'll finish the whole thing off.
On the top of the skin, Van's has you leave the rearmost HS-405 hole open, then every fourth rivet forward of that. Here are my first three squeezed AN426AD3- rivets on the project.
1-11-10-001-large.jpg


Then I got up to the HS-601PP (skin) to HS-702 (front spar) to HS-405 (aft inboard rib) hole. You can see that the longer rivet they call out (AN426AD3-4, instead of -3.5) isn't long enough.
Bad picture, but the rivet at the top of the picture is not going to be long enough to form a good shop head.
1-11-10-002-large.jpg


Then, I spent a few minutes looking over my work from yesterday. It generally looks pretty good, but I must have been distracted during these three or four rivets (at least they are on the bottom of the skin). Not a big deal, but when you look at it in the right light, you can see some small dings.
A couple small smilies and dings. These make me want a swivel flush set. Hmm. It looks like I didn't keep the rivet gun straight. Bummer.
1-11-10-005-large.jpg


From today, two of the rivets I squeezed didn't sit correctly in the dimple. They are probably just fine, but I'm going to replace them. (I know, I know, they will be under the empennage fairing, but still, I want them better than they are.)
Only two rivets to replace tomorrow. Better than yesterday's average.
1-11-10-006-large.jpg


30 quiet minutes today, after the girlfriend and puppies went to bed. I'm so sneaky.

38 rivets tonight, 2 I'll have to drill out tomorrow, but don't count against my batting average tonight.
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Post Title: Right HS skin scuff and dimple
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Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:42:49 +0000
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Once the UNC game started and finishing up the dishes, I managed to fit an hour in outside before getting too tired to start anything new.
Hmm. This is a nice Chianti. What should I start on tonight
1-13-10-001-large.jpg


More fine riveting work. (I need to do something about the circles left by the dimple dies.) I know they are normal, but wouldn't the skin look better without them? Maybe some blue painters tape on the dies will work. I'll have to try it out on some scrap.
Nice and smooth.
1-13-10-004-large.jpg


I spent the rest of my hour edge finishing, scuffing, and dimpling the right HS skin. How does it look? (Notice blue painter's tape on the exterior side? Works like magic to prevent scratches.)
Right HS skin scuffed and dimpled.
1-13-10-006-large.jpg


That's all for tonight. Boo UNC for sucking so bad tonight. Come on, Roy, whip those boys into shape!
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Post Title: Right HS - Primed skeleton, Dimpled skin
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Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:48:57 +0000
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Today, I used my lunch hour to swing by NAPA to pick up some more self-etching primer and then get a few minutes of work done before playing with the puppies. Jack and Ginger love it when they get to go outside and play during the middle of the day.

Anyway, I finished edge-prepping, cleaning, and drying the right HS ribs and front spar before priming them.

Then, I broke out the c-frame and finished dimpling the right HS skin. This time, I put a piece of blue painter's tape (sticky side toward the male (exterior side of the skin) dimple die) between the dies and squeezed them together. I figured this layer of tape would help prevent some of the circles I am getting during dimpling.
3/32" Dimple Dies covered in blue tape.
1-15-10-001-large.jpg


The resulting dimples don't have as much of a circle around them, and the dimples are just as deep. I wish I had known that the first time around. I'm not very happy that my right HS is going to end up looking a lot nicer than the left.

It was a little short of an hour today, but I ran a little long yesterday, so I'll log an hour.
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Post Title: Started riveting right HS
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Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:35:56 +0000
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I managed a couple hours in the shop today, even though I was as sick as a dog. In between frantically running to the bathroom to pray to the porcelain god, I did get a couple things done. I planned to get some of the right HS done today, which needed more prep on the skin, and then some riveting.

First, I cleaned and primed right HS skin interior.
Right HS skin all primed and such. Well, on one side, at least.
1-15-10-002-large.jpg


After flipping, priming the other side, and letting it dry, I decided to fix some of the bad rivets from the other day. They look better now.
HS-710/HS-712 to HS-702 rivets fixed.
1-15-10-004-large.jpg


Then, I grabbed the right HS ribs and front spar and clecoed some of them to the left HS. I
Right spar clecoed to the left HS assembly. This thing is getting big.
1-15-10-005-large.jpg


I started by riveting the front spar to HS-710 and HS-714. This time, I was following the directions a little more closely. All of the rivets today turned out great. I had switched from my offset cupped set to a straight set, and they were all perfect. (Don't mind the two empty holes on the far left, I remembered them later and shot those rivets, too.)
Great rivets if I do say so myself.
1-15-10-006-large.jpg


Then I riveted HS-405 and HS-404 to front spar. Again, no mistakes. Then, I turned back to the skin once it was dry. On the left side, I waiting until riveting HS-707 and HS-706 to the skin before I devinyled this area. On this skin, I figured that I wouldn't be holding a bucking bar (that I could drop and scratch the skin) in this area, so why not take the blue off before making it hard on myself. Much easier this way, but I could only do it here. (I have to admit, those nice straight primer lines make me happy.)
Back to the skin. Devinyling the easy way.
1-15-10-007-large.jpg


The directions have you cleco in HS-707, rivet to the bottom skin, then cleco in HS-706 and HS-708 (to help the skin take shape and sit tight against the aft holes of HS-707), and then rivet HS-707 to the top skin. Just like the left side, I needed AN426AD3-4 rivets where they sometimes call out an AN426AD3-3.5.

The, I let this happen.
Uh oh...
1-15-10-008-large.jpg


What? Don't see anything? Try this angle.
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!><
1-15-10-009-large.jpg


NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:-(

It was completely my fault. I was getting confident, and was holding the rivet gun with my left hand. I had the pressure set near 50psi (I usually use 40psi for the AD3- rivets) and the gun got away from me.

I stared at it for about 5 minutes, realizing that it was probably okay, but would essentially force me to bondo and paint the tail, which would not have been the end of the world, except I still might want to polish the airplane.

I decided to drill out the 4 rivets I had set in the bottom skin to see if I could help it any with a flush set from the back side. I managed to get my backrivet set in there a little, and it helped, but I came inside as I was getting chilled and frustrated.

Later, I realized that I have a c-frame, and with two flush sets in there, I may be able to very gently hammer it back into shape (or at least get it close). I'll have to re-dimple, too, because I flattened out the dimple while trying to fix the dents.)

...so...mad...

Maybe this weekend I can fix it up a little and keep going.
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A
 
Very correctable. Not ideal but hey it happens. I have a few of these, not on control surfaces, but around here and there on my scratch and ding -7a, nothing that won't buff out! Drill that rivet, put a new one in, little peening and off you go!
 
Post Title: More Right HS Riveting
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Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:55:18 +0000
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After a nice day off (had to work), I got back in the garage this morning for some good progress.

I started off by assessing the damage from the other day's skin denting fiasco. I contemplated removing HS-707 entirely (from the top skin, too) so I could really get in there and smooth this sucker out. I even got everything mocked up in the c-frame again to look at the feasibility of getting rid of this dent. Then I decided I would have probably caused more harm than good, and that it looked a lot better today than it did the other day. After re-clecoing HS-708 into the skin with HS-707 and re-riveting the bottom skin to HS-707, I took this picture. The dented area is between the bottom two rivets in the picture. It's really not that bad.
The denting between the bottom two rivets is really not that bad. And, it's on the bottom of the right HS. No one will look there. Unless you are reading this, and come to see my airplane, and want to see the dent on the bottom of the right HS. **** you.
1-17-10-001-large.jpg


****! I forgot to remove the blue vinyl from the inboard bay before clecoing everything together. Okay, let's un-cleco, remove, the vinyl, and recleco. Great. After inspecting (admiring, really) the assembly, I noticed a loose rivet (as opposed to a prude rivet. Hehe.). It was one of the two forward HS-707 rivets (by the denting). Grrr. Okay, should I un-cleco everything, and risk scratching everything in the process, or drill out two small rivets in the HS-404 to get my arm in there. I decided to go with drilling, since apparently I am really good at drilling rivets out. Without any issue, I got HS-404 removed and reached in to replace the offending rivet (second from the right in the picture).
HS-404 removed so I could reach in to replace the loose rivet.
1-17-10-003-large.jpg


Then, I reinstalled HS-404. (But took this picture before I actually riveted it to HS-702 (front spar) and HS-405 (aft root rib) behind the spar. Just pretend there are perfectly driven rivets there.
HS-404 reinstalled and the rest of the skin clecoed together.
1-17-10-004-large.jpg


Time to skin rivet. I like this part. Here is my technique. I stick the appropriate sized rivet in the hole, cover with blue tape, then reach in with the bucking bar, and shoot with my flush set, which is also covered in blue tape. Then, I remove the rest of the clecos, put rivets in again, and move all this little pieces of blue tape over one. (Then I figured out that on the second round, I could remove all the blue pieces of tape and run a whole line of tape along the line. I just had to make sure verify which rivets I had the bucking bar behind by pushing up on it a little. you can then see the rivet pushing up behind the tape. Bucking bar in place, I can set the gun down on the rivet and shoot.)

If you were counting, you noticed there are now two pieces of blue tape between the flush set and the rivet (and my fragile HS skin). This worked well for me, prevented further damage, and gave me some friction to help keep the set in place.
Rivets ready to set, covered with blue tape.
1-17-10-006-large.jpg


So, I knocked out all of the rivets needing to be bucked (I think it was 42 per side) before inspecting all my work for any issues. I think I found 5 skin rivets I wanted to replace. Here is a good example. The shop heads of all of these look great, but I want those rivets perfectly flush. I didn't take an after picture (sorry), but I assure you, the one on the right now looks like the one on the left.
Bad rivet on the right. Replace.
1-17-10-008-large.jpg


After bucking all of those, I moved the now very big HS assembly to the floor while I cleaned off my workbench. Nice and clean again.
Clean workbench!
1-17-10-009-large.jpg


Then, I brought the HS back up on the table to squeeze the rivets that could be squeezed on the HS-601PP (skin) to HS-404 (inboard tip rib), HS-405 (inboard aft rib), and HS-706 (tip rib). The instructions have you leave 5 holes open on the inboard lines for the empennage fairing attach holes on the top only, but I decided to leave the same holes empty on the bottom for now, just to have clecos there on both sides to hold the HS off the table. I also left some clecos in both sides of the tip ribs (although I left less on the right than I had on the left the other day, so I squeezed a few more on the left. ) Anyway, the HS is upside-down here. Left side is in the foreground.
Oooh, pretty.
1-17-10-010-large.jpg


And after I flipped the HS right side up.
Shiny and clean.
1-17-10-013-large.jpg


Good 3.5 hour day today. 146 rivets set, 14 drilled out.

Next up:

1) Remove rest of blue vinyl from inside of HS.
2) Rear spar work.
3) Finish riveting holes in HS.
4) Figure out what is going to "fly" when I finish the HS.
5) Hang HS for storage

I also decided that I am going to keep a separate page for tips. I keep learning these little tricks along the way. I should write them down.
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Hey Andrew,
Great name by the way...
Project is looking great. i have some videos up on you tube with the HS construction as well.
I rave about the blue painters tape as well. use it everywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/user/SkiDuneTech

look forward to seeing more.

i noticed the HS00001 doublers were not added to the spar? your thoughts?
 
Hey Andrew,
Great name by the way...
Project is looking great. i have some videos up on you tube with the HS construction as well.
I rave about the blue painters tape as well. use it everywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/user/SkiDuneTech

look forward to seeing more.

i noticed the HS00001 doublers were not added to the spar? your thoughts?


Thanks.

I'm posting here from my blog archive as a separate way to backup stuff. (I'm including the original date of the post to hopefully keep the timing correct.)

But yes, even though I'm halfway through the wings, I have not yet gone back to incorporate the service bulletin. Need to do that.

Do your videos outline that service bulletin?
 
Post Title: Rear Spar work
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Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:59:12 +0000
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I didn't mean to spend a lot of time in the garage tonight, but I ended up spending about 2.5 hours.

The only thing left I have to do on the HS before getting the rear spar on is...finishing the rear spar. First thing, finish edge prep, then some more scotchbriting and finally cleaning in the kitchen ("get that airplane part out of the kitchen!"). Here are the parts ready to go inside for some cleaning. You can see the PermaGrit block I've been using to edge-finish.
Nice and scotchbrited.?
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Then, I scurried outside in the cold to prime the rear spar components (HS-603PPs and HS-609PPs), and came back inside to finish devinyling the other interior bay.
More clean interior!
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Then, after quick two-hour break for dinner and a couple TV shows, I went back outside after normal bedtime once I knew the rear spar parts had dried. Here they are clecoed together with the elevator center bearing (VA-146) and the hinge brackets.
Rear spar clecoed together, ready for riveting.
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This took most of the build time tonight. Here are some shop heads for your enjoyment. Not perfect, but they all pass the rivet gage test.
Shop heads.
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Then I found the washers (the ones you are looking for are the thick ones). There were 24 of them in the bag. (Stop judging me for not putting all of my hardware in separate trays. Using the inventory sheet and the bags has worked well for me so far.)
Washers installed.
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Then I found the nuts. I didn't torque anything down yet, just finger tight. Need to get some torque seal soon.
Nuts!
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Alright, time to go inside, it's getting late. Here are a few pictures of the final product tonight.
Nice and riveted rear spar. For those of who who don't have the plans in front of you, there are a couple sets of empty holes. They get riveted to the HS skeleton. I didn't forget anything, I promise.
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120 rivets set today. I'll have to drill out a couple of the AN470AD4-5 rivets they have you set in the outboard hinge brackets. The instructions insist the rivet callouts on the plans is correct, but they seemed a little long. In a few cases, the shop heads cracked on a diagonal (I'll try to get a picture of this tomorrow) so I'll have to drill them out and replace them. Not bad, though. My riveting drill-out batting average decreased from 10% to 7.3% today. Good day!

For future reference, I finished up my second can of self-etching primer. I did prime the whole practice kit, but still, that is a lot of self-etching primer. I think on the next can, i am going to weigh the full can, then weigh the empty can. Then maybe I can make a rudimentary guess at the weight of primer I've used. (Ignoring the weight of the compressed gas in the container.)
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Post Title: Started closing up HS
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Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:59:57 +0000
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I snuck out to the garage tonight for a couple minutes of getting the rear spar riveted into the HS. Before clecoing the rear spar in, I had a few rivets I needed to drill out from yesterday. First, this one, which was sitting a little high.
Down in front!
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Easily drilled out and replaced. Then I moved on to two cases of split shop heads. Here's the first one.
Split shop head #1.
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And the second one. I think this happens when I start to set the rivet a little crooked and then try to straighten out.
Split shop head #2. Uglier.
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Anyway, I fixed both of those, and took this picture of the new shop head as representative of all three.
It's art to me.
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Then, I clecoed the rear spar into the HS and started dropping rivets in. These haven't been squeezed yet, but I thought it looked cool.
Ready to start squeezing the skin to spar rivets.
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Then Ginger came out to ask why I wasn't inside rubbing her belly.
"What are you doing out here, dad?"
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She wouldn't come on this side of the workbench, but was definitely curious. She was staring at me from under the workbench for about 20 seconds before I realized she was down there.
"Dad, come inside and let me lay on you."
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After squeezing all of the skin-to-spar rivets, I needed to find the BSPQ-5-4 blind rivets. Here they are.
BSPQ-5-4.
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Here are the HS-708 (rib) to rear spar holes they fill.
Last 2 (4, 2 on each side) holes in the horizontal stabilizer.
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I ended up spending almost 2 hours outside. Drilled 3 rivets out, set 178.
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Post Title: Horizontal Stabilizer Complete
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Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:50:10 +0000
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Well, except for the fiberglass tips. And the elevator horn cutouts. But you get the idea.

I spent a half an hour in the garage early tonight finishing the last few things up. One of which was setting the last 4 rivets on the horizontal.
I had forgotten about the 4 rivets (4 on the left and right edges of the picture).
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Also, I drilled out 12 skin rivets that were sitting a little proud, and reset them. Here's the HS with the fiberglass tips just taped into place (to see what it looks like).
Finished HS with the tips taped into place. Looks good.
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Up next, the vertical stabilizer.
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Post Title: Empennage Hardware Inventory, Tools
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Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:20:07 +0000
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After a quick morning stop to Harbor Freight for the pictured stuff below and NAPA for two more bottles of self-etching primer, I got home and decided to finish inventorying the empennage hardware.
$24 shopping spree!
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I found a coupon in Men's Journal (or Men's Health, I can't remember) for a whole bunch of stuff from Harbor Freight. One of the coupons was for $1.99 12" clamp, and the other was for a FREE flashlight. (3.5 inch 8 LED flashlight). I was surprised to get it home and discover it already had batteries in it.
Holy ****, this FREE flashlight is bright.
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Also, I found some 8 inch welding pliers for $4.99. After some edge finishing and smoothing of the interior surface, these should end up being nice hand seamers, for $15 less than the cheapest aircraft tool company.
"Welding Pliers" + smooth surfaces and edges = Hand Seamers
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Most of the hour was spent taking the empennage hardware out of the bags. The bags worked just fine for me, especially since I kept the hardware inventory sheet handy, but this will work even better, and really only cost me about $17.
Rivets in this one...
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Sorry about the blurry picture. You don't really need to read the names, do you?
Miscellaneous hardware in this one...
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I can stack them, and they just fit on the top shelf of my Prev | Next
 
Post Title: Edge and Surface prep for VS Skeleton
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Sat, 23 Jan 2010 21:20:24 +0000
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Time to get started on the vertical. Drawing 6.
Time to start on the vertical stabilizer.
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After finishing the Empennage Hardware Inventory today, I got started on edge and surface prep on the VS ribs and spars. Here are the components for the VS skeleton. I like to scuff up the surfaces and finish the edges before initial assembly. This prevents scratching, and frankly makes the parts look better in the pictures.
VS skeleton components.
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After removing the blue vinyl on the rear spar, front spar, and reinforcement piece, I used my Permagrit block to remove all of the burrs from the spars and ribs. Then, I used my edge deburring tool and a scothbrite pad to finish the edges on the spars.

After that, I took the 4 VS ribs into the kitchen and used a soapy scotchbrite pad to scuff them up. Here's one before rinsing.
So fresh and so clean, clean.
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Here are all four after edge finishing and scuffing.
Scuffed up and looking ready to assemble for match-drilling.
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Next up, fluting the ribs and scotchbriting the spars and reinforcement piece before assembling for match-drilling.

An hour and a half. Not bad.
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Post Title: VS Assembly and Matchdrilling
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Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:16:11 +0000
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First thing after breakfast, I snagged the two VS spars and the spar reinforcement and headed into the kitchen to finish some surface prep. After about an hour, I had all three pieces scuffed up, cleaned, and back outside. Here is a shot during scuffing. You can see the top half has been scotchbrited and the bottom half is the raw part after removing the blue vinyl.
You can even see my hand and the camera in the bottom half.
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I started clecoing the rear spar doubler to the rear spar, and then realized they want you to put the hinge brackets in now. I quickly located VS-410PP, VS-411PP, and VS-412PP, and got the Goo Gone out to help pull these stickers off.
These part number stickers are a pain in the butt to get off cleanly.
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While I waited for the Goo Gone to do its magic, I decided to start clecoing the front spar and ribs together. You can also see the rear spar and rear spar reinforcement in the upper left corner of this picture.
Tip rib attached.
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I followed Mike Bullock's advice and clamped the rear spar to a couple of 2x4s. This let me matchdrill the rear spar vertically, which helps a lot with getting a perfectly straight hole.
Rudimentary VS jig for matcdrilling the rear spar.
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Here's my process. Cleco every other hole, match drill, mark the drilled hole with a dry-erase dot, move the clecos, repeat. Here, you can see my dots.
Dry-erase dots help me know which holes I've drilled.
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After finishing up the ones you can reach from the aft side of the rear spar, I flipped the whole assembly over and match-drilled the two remaining holes (that aren't drilled in the upper half of the lower set of hinge brackets).
12" bit doing its thing...
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Here, you can see that I am in the middle of moving clecos. The one in the center of the picture gets moved one left (into the marked, already drilled hole), then the one to the left of that gets moved one left, and so on.
Example of brand new cleco on the left, and two used clecos in the middle. Eh, they work just fine, they're just not as pretty.
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I got the left side of the vertical match-drilled, then flipped it over, took this picture, and then headed inside.
Ready for the second side of match-drilling. Maybe later tonight or tomorrow.
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3.0 solid hours today. Good work all around.
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Post Title: Matchdrilled Right Side of Vertical
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Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:21:40 +0000
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No pictures tonight.

I broke out the cordless drill (quieter than the air drill) and finished matchdrilling the right side of the vertical stabilizer.

Same routine. Drill every other hole, mark with a dry-erase marker, move clecos, drill remaining holes. Because the root forward rib gave me a little trouble when clecoing during initial assembly, I had 100% clecoed it. For this area, I removed one cleco, matchdrilled, then replaced the cleco. I just didn't want it to move around on me at all.

Since I forgot to take a picture, here's another picture of Jack and Ginger.
Ginger all up in your business, Jack in the background.
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Half an hour. Not bad for a night I wasn't planning on working on the airplane.
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Post Title: More VS work
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Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:59:52 +0000
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Last night I spent a little bit of time rearrange (cleaning) out the workshop. Now, I've got a little more room to maneuver. (Mostly, I just moved my second workbench a little left, and moved the shop vac over by the compressor, now the walkway to get into my workshop area is a little more open.)
Slightly different layout for the workshop. I like this."

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Tonight, I started by disassembling the vertical to start the deburring, dimpling, countersinking, cleaning, priming, and then reassembly dance. Here I am set up in front of the UNC game for some deburring.
Ready to deburr some holes. Don't judge me for drinking white. We had red snapper for dinner.
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After what seemed like a thousand holes to deburr, I broke out the 3/32" tank dimple dies and the 1/8" regular dimple dies (for the rear spar) and got ready to dimple. Dimpling is much easier than deburring, and fun, too. I know deburring is important, but I feel like I've made progress after dimpling.
Ready to dimple.
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Then, I started dimpling the ribs and spars. Here are the 3/32" tank dies in action.
3/32" tank dies in action.
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Here I am using the 1/8" regular (shallower) dimple dies on the rear spar. I had to triple check both the holes and the direction before proceeding. This is correct, I think. (Flush rivets on the forward side of the spar.)
1/8" dimples on the rear spar. These are my first 1/8" dimples.
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After finishing dimpling, I grabbed the skin and brought it inside to devinyl. Devinyling is a lot easier indoors, where the vinyl is room temperature. I tried pulling off the horizontal stabilizer vinyl in the garage when it was near freezing, and it kept tearing and was very stiff.
Waiting for the soldering iron to heat up.
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Ready to pull off the blue vinyl on the exterior of the skin.
Ready to devinyl the outside of the skin.
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And finally, the vertical stabilizer skin devinyled (and everything carried back out into the garage).
Pretty skin. Also, that's me in the reflection.
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Next up, countersinking the rear spar reinforcement then deburring, dimpling, and scuffing the skin. Then priming, then I get to put this sucker together.

I can't believe how much faster the vertical is than the horizontal. Part of it is the learning curve, but I think they should have you start with the vertical. Much easier, in my opinion.
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Post Title: VS skin Deburring and Dimpling
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Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:59:45 +0000
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Today, I didn't make it outside until late, so I didn't get a lot of work done. Here's me starting on deburring the skin. Yes, I am using the Van's recommended "spin a drill bit in your fingers" method. It works for me.
Snow!
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Here's after about an hour of shoveling. Good workout.
Coming down fast, but at least I cleared off the first 6".
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Then, I got the c-frame out and finished the VS skin dimpling. I replaced the blue tape on the male die, and got almost no circles.
Simple but effective dimpling setup.
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Then I countersunk all of the lower forward spar reinforcement holes from the plans. I haven't used the countersink since I had to countersink HS-710 and HS-714 to accept a #30 dimple, so the countersink cage was already set up. All I had to do was verify in a piece of scrap. Yup. It's perfect.
Beautiful countersinking.
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Then, I cleaned and primed one interior side of the vertical skin, then the other. Here's the first side drying.
Hurry up and wait to dry.
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After finishing the second side and letting it dry, I pulled the forward section of vinyl off of the interior side of the skin. During assembly, no bucking bars will be needed in there, so there is no risk of scratching. Then I finished edge finishing the ribs, spars, and rear spar reinforcement, and primed each one. I didn't prime them sitting perfectly horizontal, so I got some runs and some nastiness; some of them ended up getting touched up, and some got a second coat. After they were all dry, I cleco those bad boys together in preparation for riveting.
Skeleton and rear spar taking shape.
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I started with the skeleton, middle rib. Here's my first VS rivet.
First VS rivet.
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Then, I moved to the tip. See the upper rivet? The skins are sitting flush, this will have to be drilled out.
Ahhh! I suck at riveting.
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And the lower rivet there started to bend over. I'll have to drill out both rivets.
Two rivets to be drilled out.
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Back to the middle rib, two more perfect rivets.
There are pretty good. I need to make sure that bottom one is driven enough.
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See the fourth rivet from the right? Started to bend over, so I'm going to drill it out. Also, I'm going to put the shop heads on the thicker material here, also, they'll be easier to inspect.
 
Uh oh. See the third rivet from the right? I was supposed to wait and rivet this with the skeleton. Slow down and follow the directions!
Two more rivets to be drilled out.
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But I was feeling good about squeezing, so I kept going. Until these 4 rivets. Terrible...they all started to bend over. I think my rivet squeezer sucks. I have to squeeze really hard and it it tough to keep everything aligned. I think after I drill these out I am going to shoot and buck these.
4 bad rivets to be drilled out.
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At this point, I had to walk away, I was tired, frustrated, and not making any progress. Ugh.

So far, 3.5 hours. I set some rivets today, but I'm not going to count any of them until I drill them out. I'll update the rivet count later.
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Post Title: VS Rear Spar Work
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Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:31:53 +0000
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After the big snow storm this weekend, work was delayed this morning until 10:30am. That gave me a few extra hours to recover from my ski trip yesterday. Maybe I'll post a couple pictures later.

Also, I snuck in an hour on the vertical tail this morning after a quick workout.

First thing, I drilled out the 5 poorly set rivets from Saturday, and ended up shooting 67 rivets in today.

Here I am setting some universal rivets.
Me using the tape trick even on universal rivets.
photo-1.jpg


About 4 of these didn't sit completely flush after backriveting, so I'll have to drill them out. I think it it because I am using some steel bar stock as a backriveting plate instead of a true backriveting plate. Also, my 12" double offset backriveting set sucked. I think it is too long to really transfer the force. I swtiched to a shorter and it worked great.

One hour today. Set 67 rivets, drilled out 5 from the other day.
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Post Title: VS Skin Riveting
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Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:35:45 +0000
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After 9 days of not working on the airplane, I finally made it out to the garage. In all fairness, though, I spent all last week working out hard, and preparing for a bachelor party at Snowshoe. West Virginia, right? Yup. It was actually pretty cool there. It was in the midst of the big blizzard that bent the east coast over last week, so Showshoe got somewhere around 20 inches of snow. Legend...wait for it...dary.

Anyway, I had previously drilled out the front spar(VS-702) to tip rib (VS-706) rivets, so here are the replacements. The one on the left doesn't look all that good, but this is my third try, and I think I am going to leave good enough alone.
Front spar to tip rib rivets. Left one sucks, but I'm not going to make it any worse.
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Then, I reset the VS-704 root rib to front spar rivets. I set the middle one fine, then messed up the outer two. Drill out, and reset them just fine on the second try.
Looking good from this side.
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Here's a shot of some shop heads. You'll have to click on the picture to see them.
Nice looking shop heads. You can also see my interior skin masking practice. Looks good, doesn't it?
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More shop heads.
Another shot of the shop heads for VS-702 front spar and VS-707 middle rib.
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And one more...
Once I get the other side of the skin riveted, I can take off the blue vinyl from the inside of the skins.
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After riveting one side of the skin, I had to head inside to watch UNC play Dook. (Yes, that is how you spell Dook.)
Starting to look like something that could fly.
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One hour today. I drilled out 3 rivets , set 5 rivets on the skeleton and 39 on the left VS skin. 44 total. Booyah.
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Post Title: VS Skin Riveting, Part Deux
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Sat, 13 Feb 2010 03:59:04 +0000
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I'm writing this on Monday for Friday night's work, so we'll see how much I can remember.

After a couple minutes of clecoing on the right side of the VS skin, I got started riveting. First, I set every other rivet along the VS-702 front spar and the VS-707 middle rib.
Left skin on the bottom, right skin on the top. That crazy long cleco keeps sneaking into the pictures.
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Here's a picture of my "every-other-rivet" style. It works well.
Ready for the remaining rivets.
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Another rivet picture. (I'm not sure I got these in the correct order...Hmm.)
VS shop heads.
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More rivets.
More shop heads.
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<sigh>
<yawn>
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Had enough yet?
Even more shop heads.
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Alright, now I get to start removing the blue vinyl. This is where the gravy is. After all that prep work and riveting, you get to remove the vinyl to reveal a beautiful shine on the inside. I can't wait to do this on the exterior skin (just before polishing). Flash on for visibility.
Starting to remove the blue vinyl.
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I left the flash on for this one so you could see inside.
Inside the lower bay of the VS.
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And the upper bay.
Upper bay of the VS.
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After removing all of the vinyl, I moved on to riveting the tip (VS-706) and root ribs (VS-704 and VS-705) to the skin. All was going well, until I got the front of the root rib.
 
Anyway, for some reason the skin wasn't sitting well on the rib. I later determined it wasn't interference, just the natural curve of the rib.
The lower right side of the VS skin wasn't sitting very well on the root rib.
2-12-10-061-large.jpg


My solution? Use a tape-covered clamp to squeeze them together.
Alright, let's set this rivet.
2-12-10-062-large.jpg


That did the trick. Who's next?
Looks perfect now.
2-12-10-063-large.jpg


Here I am riveting some of the rest of the root rib. I was very careful to not rivet the 6 holes on each side the instructions tell you to leave open for the empennage fairing. I probably won't use all 6, but I can always squeeze these later, so why close any metaphorical doors?
In the middle of squeezing the root rib.
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Here's the VS (except the rear spar) all riveted together. Notice the 6 clecos in the holes to leave open.
Where's that rear spar?
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I inserted the rear spar and started setting rivets. All was going perfectly, until I realized that most of the rivets couldn't be set because of conflicting shop heads on the rear spar. I had tried two rivets that were close to having enough clearance, and I messed both of the shop heads up. Here's one.
Bad rivet shop head there in the middle. Obviously.
2-12-10-067-large.jpg


And here's the other.
Another bad shop head there on the left. See the cleco in the middle of the picture. The rivet that will go in that hole doesn't have a lot of room to be bucked.
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I gave up on any other rivets that would be close with the squeezer. I've been doing so well recently with the gun and bucking bar, that I'll just wait till I can make loud noises and set them with the gun.
Where I left off for today. I'll figure out how to set the remaining rear spar to skin rivets sometime next week.
2-12-10-069-large.jpg


One and a half hours today. 135 rivets set; some shot, some squeezed. Only a few will have to be drilled out later. Good night tonight. Hopefully next week, the Prev | Next
 
Post Title: Vertical Stabilizer 99 Percent Complete
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Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:29:36 +0000
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Jack and Ginger were a little neglected this weekend while the girlfriend and I painted the master bedroom. I'm sorry, guys.

Anyway, tonight was all about them, so in the middle of playing, napping by the fire, and running in circles around the house, I managed to calm them down enough to help with the airplane a little.

With the few minutes I had, I managed to set the 22 rivets that were hard to reach with the squeezer last Friday night. A few of them, especially near the elevator hinge brackets, were still hard, but I managed to get them all set, even if it was after drilling a few out. I also set the three AN470AD4-6 rivets that hold the rear spar to the root rib and also install the three LP4-3 rivets that hold the rear spar to the middle rib. Here are the dogs, once I got the vertical up into the ski equipment room, umm, I mean airplane parts storage room, umm, I mean burnt orange room.
The dogs flew again. This time with directional stability!
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They aren't really happy about being in the orange room in general (it is off limits, so they are very good about not crossing the threshold), but especially not when they have to pose in the airplane. I know for a fact, though, that they will love flying in it when it's done.
Jack's not very happy about posing. He's ready to go.Jack's slightly less uncomfortable the further he is away from the "shiny blue thing that makes loud noises." Seriously, I heard him describe it that way.
2-15-10-004-large.jpg


Ginger's okay, though. Especially when there is a bone on which she could be chewing.
Jack's slightly less uncomfortable the further he is away from the "shiny blue thing that makes loud noises." Seriously, I heard him describe it that way.
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Finally, one without the dogs.
Tada!!!
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All in all, a good night. 1 hour, 28 rivets set, 5 drilled out.

There are still a few more things I would like to do to the vertical, like drill out a couple of rivets and reset them, and clean up some of the skin edges, but for the most part, it can sit inside while I press on. I can't believe it took me 16.5 hours for the vertical versus 44.5 for the horizontal. I think I would recommend to other newbies to start on the vertical. It seemed to be a lot easier, but I don't know if that was because I had done everything once already on the horizontal, or because it really was easier. Whatever you do, don't take my advice, though. You'll die if you do.
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Post Title: Started Rudder - Stiffeners
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Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:20:50 +0000
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Well, with the vertical stabilizer safely in the airplane storage room, it's time to get started on another part. Next up, the (infamous) rudder. There are a lot of steps on the rudder that give a lot of builders a lot of trouble. I am confident, but will continue to use other sites on a daily basis before doing any work that evening. That's worked out well for me so far, so I'm going to keep at it.

First thing's first, the ceremonial plans change. I still keep the plans on my second workbench. Maybe someday I'll find a place to actually hang them up.
Drawing 7. The Rudder. (Cue dramatic music.)
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I spent a little time trying to figure out whether I will do the stiffener-to-skin dance on both sides at once, or just one side. You can see below that if I had another longer piece of MDF and maybe took my vise off the bench, I could set the skins on opposite corners and maybe do them at once, but I think I'll just do one at a time, making sure I can reuse the holes I plan to drill into the table. (Drilling, and then clecoing, the stiffeners to the skins all the way into the table will allow me to keep everything very steady. Sounds like a good plan to me, and is pretty much standard given that Van's suggests doing so in the construction manual.)
I'll have to do one skin at a time. I don't want to get too crowded, and I am not overly concerned with building efficiency.
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First step in the manual is to start on the stiffeners. I fished out the bundle of stiffeners (there are two bundles, one set for the rudder, and one set for the elevator) and studied the plans. For the back side of the stiffeners (with the shallow angle on the right side of the picture below), these are the final cuts, so I need to be careful. For the front side (you can see a little of the front of a stiffener on the left in this picture), only 2 of the 16 stiffeners will be to full length, so the other 14 can be rough cut until I can mark them to final size per the note at the tot of this picture.
Stiffener Trim detail, drawing 7.?
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Next, I headed inside to sit myself down at the table so I could watch the UNC vs. GT game. I know some of you are panicking right now, but please calm yourselves. While it appears that my winerack is empty (OH MY GOD, NOOOOO!), that is really our third winerack. Rest assured that our two primary wineracks are stocked satisfactorily.
Is that an empty winerack? Don't worry, the hooch is stored in another rack.
2-16-10-009-large.jpg


Anyway, here's the stiffener bundle I'm about to break open.
R-915. (I can't think of a funny caption this morning, so all you get is the part number.)
2-16-10-010-large.jpg


I broke open the bundle and started snipping from center hole to center hole. After a few stiffeners, I started biasing the cuts to the sides of the holes, but only where I was sure that I was going to have to remove more metal later. Here you can see that on the top part of the cut, I'm lined up with the left side of the slot.
Snip snip.
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I included another picture of the angle cut for the front end of the stiffener. Remember, only two of these cuts are for real, as the next step is to chop off varying lengths of stiffener from the front to match up with the pre-drilled holes in the skin.
Snippity Snip snip.
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Here's a rough cut for the front end. See how I am going to have to remove more metal because of the notches. Might as well get closer on the first cut. That's why I started biasing the cuts to one side after the first few.
The front end of the first stiffener.
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First 8 front ends done.
Yikes, those are going to need some edge finishing.
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All 16 stiffeners' front ends done.
That's a spicy stiffener.
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Next, I used an admittedly fat sharpie to draw the required cut lines on the aft ends of each of the stiffeners.
Lines drawn, back to snipping.
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And here I am using the snips to cut that longer line. Snips aren't perfect for this task, since they bend the metal, but if you work them correctly, they will only bend the piece you are cutting off. There is kind of a rocking motion you have to feel with each cut. You'll get it when you try.
Snipping the aft end.
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Here's the first one, done.
I'm a little camera happy today, don't you think?
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Then, I finished up the other 15, and was left with these scraps. If I had even the slightest hint of an artistic bone in my body, I would make some comment about how these resulting spirals are king of cool. But I don't, so I won't.
Scrap from the latest cuts.
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All 16, ready to be devinyled.
Done with those cuts.
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Starting to devinyl...
This is going to take forever.
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I'm glad I did the devinyling inside. When the vinyl is warm, it comes right off.
Holy **** that's a lot of blue v-......WHOSE TOES ARE THOSE AND HOW DID THEY GET IN THE PICTURE!?
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Next, I headed outside to put everything away, but couldn't resist setting the stiffeners out on the skins.
I'll need to trim some of these, don't you think?
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For now, I just drew a thick marker line along the front spar holes. If I cut along these lines, they will still be too long, but at least now I can figure out which hole will be the most forward hole and then use the plans-suggested 1/4" measurement to draw a nicer cut line.
8 of the 16 stiffeners, ready for final cutting.
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One hour of camera-happy warm environment work tonight. Sorry about your bandwidth.
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I agree with you, regarding starting with the VS. It is so much easier to build and improve your riveting skills.

Keep pounding!
 
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