Early non pre-punched vs pre-punched

A friend gifted me an early non pre-punched RV-8 empennage. I?m hoping to start building soon, but I see this early version requires building a jig and marking the center of ribs to drill and keep everything straight. Does anybody have experience to compare this with a newer, pre-punched kit? I watch videos of the prepunched stuff, and it looks so much easier, is it worth buying a newer kit and use this as practice/wall art? Or should I just build on this one?

Go ahead and build it. You will actually learn how to build an aircraft part and be proud of yourself for doing it. The next sub kit will come pre punched.

Check with Van?s. The non- and pre-punched RV-8 kits probably don?t mix. As was pointed out, good experience, though.

Ed

I purchased a USED RV-8 tail kit (S/N: 80012) the 12th one produced. I was the 3rd owner.

It is pre-punched. There have been changes to the newer stuff. Some of them I incorporated. The newer elevator counterweights is one of the changes that I paid extra money for more parts than I needed to.

There are not many people are around that can list all the changes made or what is worth doing. For me, I paid a discount price for an older kit but ended up spending as much money or more with the upgrade parts that I could have purchased a new tail kit with all the latest parts and instructions.

There was never a non-prepunched -8 tail kit. The early -8 tails were the same as the later -6 tails (with the 020 rudder skins) and those were pre-punched.

It is important to note that "pre-punched" refers to Van's early efforts at CNC punching the kits. On pre-punched kits the skins had holes punched but the underlying ribs/ spars/ bulkheads did not, so they still required the use of jigs. The later kits were known as "matched hole" in which both the skins and ribs are punched and you can cleco them up out of the box. This is the standard for the kits today.

Folks often confuse the terms, but they are not interchangeable.

Sure.

Go for it. Many an aircraft have been made with just a set of drawings.
In this case you have a good start and a good kit to learn with. It is not that big a deal to make a jig for the tail out of wood from you aircraft lumber store. Where you can put this tail together in the spare room or there ab-outs at home. Other than the change to the weights, "that you don't need to do" the only two thing you will wish to do are the up-dates to the H.S. spare and the one to the hinge rod eye reinforcements. Those can be done as you go together with this kit. It may take you a day to study how to draw lines on ribs to look at threw the skin holes and get your jig and plum-bob set, but that's not a big deal once you figure it out. You will be years ahead of the guys that have matched hole kits, in terms of skills, but some of us still make our own farming blocks and that is another story. Sure I would in a hart beet.

Hope this helps, Yours, R.E.A. III # 80888

sprucemoose said:

There was never a non-prepunched -8 tail kit. The early -8 tails were the same as the later -6 tails (with the 020 rudder skins) and those were pre-punched.

It is important to note that "pre-punched" refers to Van's early efforts at CNC punching the kits. On pre-punched kits the skins had holes punched but the underlying ribs/ spars/ bulkheads did not, so they still required the use of jigs. The later kits were known as "matched hole" in which both the skins and ribs are punched and you can cleco them up out of the box. This is the standard for the kits today.

Folks often confuse the terms, but they are not interchangeable.

Click to expand...

Exactly right. My first thought, when reading the initial post in this thread, was that my -8 (#81125, empennage kit received in early December, 1999) was pre-punched.

Running centerlines down the rib and bulkhead flanges is trivial and the time spent drilling & deburring those sub-structure holes doesn't add much to the total effort. The necessity for jigs is a bit of a pain, but not that big a deal in the long run.

The biggest difference I've noted with my current -14A project is the near complete lack of any requirement to fabricate parts from raw angle, plate, and bar stock from which it was formerly necessary to create one's own parts in accordance with the plans. Not so with the new, matched-hole kits. At least, I haven't had to do so yet and I'm nearly done with the wing kit. Maybe the fuselage kit will require some of that work, but I'd be surprised at this point to learn that's the case.

Anyway, build the tail you've got. It's easy to do and you'll learn a great deal in the process.

sprucemoose said:

There was never a non-prepunched -8 tail kit. The early -8 tails were the same as the later -6 tails (with the 020 rudder skins) and those were pre-punched.

It is important to note that "pre-punched" refers to Van's early efforts at CNC punching the kits. On pre-punched kits the skins had holes punched but the underlying ribs/ spars/ bulkheads did not, so they still required the use of jigs. The later kits were known as "matched hole" in which both the skins and ribs are punched and you can cleco them up out of the box. This is the standard for the kits today.

Folks often confuse the terms, but they are not interchangeable.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the clarification, this is exactly what I have, non matched holes. Ok, so drawing centerlines and building a wooden plum bob jig thing.. not too bad. What?s with this newer style counterweight thing I hear about? I Could always build the tail, then after building the other subkits, I could always build a new tail..

You could easily do that, as long as you don't drill the attach holes that connect the HS/ VS spars to the fuselage. If you do drill them, it is doable but much more difficult.

Go ahead and build the tail as others have advised. When you get all the way through your project, then make the decision on building a new tail. You wouldn't be the first builder who ended up building a new one at the end. You learn so much during the project that you might find that your standards have been raised and the once-acceptable workmanship is no longer. Since the tail cost you $0, you're out nothing but your time.

There are still some websites out there that detail the process. Sam Buchanan's is probably the best and shows you step by step how it was done 20 years ago.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~sbuc/journal/rv6.html

Taltruda said:

Thank you for the clarification, this is exactly what I have, non matched holes. Ok, so drawing centerlines and building a wooden plum bob jig thing.. not too bad. What’s with this newer style counterweight thing I hear about? I Could always build the tail, then after building the other subkits, I could always build a new tail..

Click to expand...

As the above was not clear, sorry. The weights in the control surfaces of the tail don't need to be changed if you don't want to. They were mostly changed to make it less work to install and a little lighter at the same time. Just an up-grade kind of thing. The old ones work very well and are plenty strong when put in correctly and balanced out well. I would not trade mine for the new style.
The only trick that we found to them was to drill the lightering weight from the back side of the weights so the holes don't show on the outside faces of the lead weights. No big deal, just a little extra work. You should not need a new tail, just any parts you need to replace after some practice.
yours, R.E.A. III # 80888

sprucemoose said:

There are still some websites out there that detail the process. Sam Buchanan's is probably the best and shows you step by step how it was done 20 years ago.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~sbuc/journal/rv6.html

Click to expand...

Jeff, that makes me feel old.........

Not old Sam. ?Classic.?