RV-7 Andrew Z #73658

Post Title: More Rudder Stiffeners
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Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:45:27 +0000
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After a very busy end of the work week, I managed to squeeze a couple hours of airplane time in the shop today. I started by mocking up the R-902 front spar, and drawing a black line on the left rudder skin (this is the forward bottom edge of the left skin). I'm going to draw out all of the mating surfaces on these skins, since they will have to be primed at different times (more on this later).
Forward bottom corner of the left skin. You can see the front end of the only full size stiffener.


Next, I dove into match-drilling the stiffeners and skin. Here are the first size holes drilled. I don't want any waviness in the rudder, so I am clecoing every hole as I drill. (You can see that like everyone else, I am drilling straight into the MDF that's on top of my workbench. This works well, and is basically per the plans.
First six holes of the stiffener to skin match-drilling process.


After I finished the first (lower) stiffener, the next one needed to be cut down to size. I made another mark on that stiffener, this time in line with the front spar line I drew earlier. Now, when I trim the stiffeners on the aft side of that line, there will be no interference with the front spar.
Getting ready to trim the second stiffener.


Then, I got in the groove, so the next picture was after a few of the stiffeners. I used my cordless for this. Not as noisy.
Lower 4 stiffeners done on the left skin.


All done with the left side. Oh yeah, it was 60° today, so I worked with the garage door open. So nice...
There's something really rewarding about getting to this point. OH MY GOD!, WHAT IS THAT MARK BETWEEN THE FIRST TWO STIFFENERS!?


A closer look...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I turns out I dropped my cleco pliers from about 8 inches right after I completed the first stiffener. Instead of immediately pulling up the stiffener to inspect the exterior skin, I guessed that it was going to be salvageable and pressed on.
To put it into context, it is just above the first "L" in "ALCLAD."?


It's not that bad, but it would be very noticeable If I polish. (Even if I paint, it is still a pretty big mark.
From the other (exterior) side. Bummer.


Anyway, I've heard people talking about using the back of a spoon to gently massage stuff like this out. I spent about 15 minutes gently massaging, and I ended up with this. It looks worse than the original picture, but it is pretty flush now, and I think with a little more work may even go away.
After massaging. It's good, but not great.


Anyway, after that fiasco, I laid out the right skin, marked the front spar and trailing edge wedge on the skin, and started match-drilling stiffeners. I was in such a groove that I forgot to take a picture when I had all of the stiffeners drilled and clecoed. (I didn't forget to take a moment to admire it, I just forgot to share it with you.)
After removing most of the clecos post match-drilling.


Also, while all the stiffeners were in place, I drew lines on each side of the stiffeners so I would have a guide for devinyling.
I call it match-drawing.


After pondering my next few steps (debur, dimple, scuff, clean, prime, backrivet the stiffeners on), I decided I need to get the vinyl off for deburring.
Here's the wooden stick I use as a guide for the soldering iron.


I don't think I've shown you guys my round-tipped soldering iron yet. Here you go.
Soldering iron, heating up.


After running the soldering iron down the pre-drawn lines, I get to devinyl. I say "get to" because I like this part.
Whose fingers are those?


All done with the stiffener devinyling. You can see I didn't do all of the outlined parts, because I want to prep and prime those later. (Have to assemble the skeleton, cleco on the skin, and match drill before you can debur, dimple, prep, etc. the rest of the stuff. Also, I need to find out if people are priming the trailing edge area before using Pro-seal. I have a feeling people are just scuffing, but I'll ask the forums to make sure.
Ready to deburr, dimple, scuff, and prime.


Next up, devinyling the left skin.

2.0 hours today. Gotta go get cleaned up for festivities tonight.
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Post Title: Skin Devinyling, Stiffener Dimpling
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Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:37:51 +0000
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We got a ton of work done on the house this weekend (paint, patio furniture), and a little work done on the airplane.

Yesterday morning over coffee, I brought the right rudder skin into the kitchen and started devinyling. After giving it a lot of thought, I am only going to remove the vinyl (and then scuff and prime) the rudder stiffener locations right now. Later, after matchrilling the skins to the skeletons, I'll devinyl, scuff, and prime those mating surfaces.
A couple strips done.


After finishing the right skin, I brought in the left.
Here we go. Hmm. Dog bowls are empty, I think the pups must be hungry.


Here is the interior side of the left rudder skin.
Pretty devinyled strips. I think the exterior of the skin is done, too.


Then it was off to do some errands, one of which was a stop by Harbor Freight. I got a mailing the other day, and they had some fantastic deals on some things I wanted.

7-Piece Body Repair Kit. First, the "body repair kit" was $19.99. Look at the 4 bucking bars in there! I don't really care about the hammers, but my small bucking bar was not really cutting it for some of the rivets I needed to buck. The best improvement with these new bars...hand holds. They have little cutouts in the side for your fingers so you can get a great hold on the bar. I'm happy.

11" Locking C-clamp. These come in handy for clamping things around flanges. I needed one of these, and ended up walking away from Harbor Freight for about $6.

3-piece locking pliers. I have a small set of needle-nose locking pliers and love them, I figured for $4.99 for 3, I couldn't go wrong. The quality isn't the best (the screw mechanism is a little sticky), but they should work.

6-piece presicion pliers. I have a couple of these from various places and I love them. 4 pliers, and 2 cutters. I'm most looking forward to the extra long pliers second from the top. Those will help me overcome my huge sausage fingers.
Hooray shopping.


Also, I grabbed this $19.99 air filter/regulator. I wanted a better regulator/filter/oiler, and this one looks like it will fit the bill. I hope the quality is high enough to not disappoint me.
Air filer/regulator. Should work well, and will relieve me from having to oil my tools every day.


Next, I spent a ton of time deburring the skins. I think it is something like 119 holes per skin, times two sides, times two skins. Yes, my fingers hurt. Here I am scuffing the inside of the skins after deburring.
Deburring and scuffing.


I was getting fancy with the camera, so here's a closeup of one of the strips after deburring and scuffing.
Deburred and scuffed strip on the interior side of the skin.


And another picture of a strip before scuffing. This hole has been deburred, though. i should have taken a picture of an un-deburred hole for you. Sorry.
Deburred, but not scuffed.


While Mike Bullock has his Natty Boh, I have my Blue Moon (well, Rising Moon, their seasonal).
The moon!

All done!Finally, I finished scuffing the interior of the skins. After I get these all cleaned up (it will be harder to clean after dimpling) , I can get these dimpled and primed.
All done!


Here's a nice closeup of me deburring the stiffeners.
Deburring the stiffeners.


After finishing deburring all of the stiffeners (which is two more deburr operations for each of the holes from the skins), I pulled out the squeezer and tank dies (for the skeletons, which I'm considering understructure).
I like playing with these.


I decided to go ahead and scuff and dimple the stiffeners now, while I can't make any loud noises (post 10pm). I should have edge finished the stiffeners first, but I'll still be able to use the scotchbrite wheel on them after they are dimpled. To save time, I'll edge finish these while I am priming the interior of the skins later this week. Anyway, here are some dimpling shots.
Getting ready to dimple.

Squeezing.

The end result.


A few minutes of this, and the right stiffeners are done (still not edge finished, though).
Right side stiffeners done.


Wash, rinse, repeat for the left side.
Both sets of stiffeners done. Time for bed.


After that, I flipped them over and cleaned the scuffed lines.
Skins cleaned and drying.

After drying, I shot them with some self-etching primer. I was at the end of one of the cans, and some of the stuff came out kind of splotchy, but I think it will look good after it dries. I can always lay down another coat.
The left skin after priming.


Another thing. I've been putting blue tape on the exterior side, then laying the skins down flat and shooting them with primer. When I do this, some primer gets into the dimple (from the underside I am priming), and kind of bounces off the sticky side of the blue tape and settles in the dimple on the finish side. Today, I made sure none of the holes were obscured; hopefully that will prevent any primer from getting on the exterior surface. I thought about taping the final rivets in the dimples, since that is the next step with the skins anyway, but I am not sure about using self-etching primer on unset rivets, then setting them. I have never seen that done before, and I don't want to be the first guy to try. I'm sure I would have been okay, but the other way seemed to work fine.
And the right skin after priming.


Once you get the stiffener in, you can see they aren't the recommended 1.5 times diameter. I'm also a little concerned that the dimpled holes are a little big for the rivets. I didn't notice this on the other components using the tank dies. Hmm. I'm going to look around and see if anyone else has encountered this.
Not long enough. (TWSS)


I was moving along merrily until I got to this hole. Doh!
Forgot to dimple this hole. I had to break out the c-frame just for this one lonely hole.


After I got all the rivets in and taped, I flipped the skin over.
These rivets will be long enough.


Then, one by one, I final trimmed the stiffeners (snipped the 90° corners off with the snips) and laid them in to see what it would look like.
asdf


A solid hour and a half. After edge prepping and priming the stiffeners, I should be ready to install the stiffeners permanently.
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Post Title: Stiffener Prep, Priming, and some Backriveting
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Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:59:21 +0000
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Tonight, I decided I wanted to get started on backriveting the stiffeners. First, I had to finish edge prepping them, and get them primed. Here are my edge prepping tools for these stiffeners.
Permagrit, scotchbrite, an edge deburring tool, and one of the stiffeners. Sorry about the dirty table, that's from me waxing my skis. See the big spot near the top of the picture. That's from me getting wax on the iron, and trying to scrape it off using the table. Maybe I'll turn my benchtop over tonight so I look like a clean builder again.


After getting a few of them prepped, I went ahead and started priming.
Stiffeners drying.


Here's the right skin, ready to accept the stiffeners.
Right skin, with rivets ready to go.


At first, I tried this backriveting extra long double offset rivet set I got from Avery. I don't really like this thing. With the pressure turned all the way up to 50 psig, the rivets weren't really setting well, and the plastic sheath was marring the stiffeners.
Here's what I tried the for the first stiffener.


Although the results are good, I ended up switching to another set.
Very pretty. I'm sure some of that marring will come out during polish. Very nice surface, though.


Then I switched sets to a large7/16" cupped set, which worked well to keep the set (with no plastic sheath) on the rivet as it was being driven, but left some of them with a little bit of a rounded edge. I'm sure this is okay, but need to have someone come look at it.
Still, they look pretty good.


Here's a better shot. They are okay, but not perfect.
See the slight rounded edge to them? I'm sure that is okay.


I managed to get through 4 stiffeners before I started getting tired and went to bed.
4 of 8 stiffeners done on the right skin.


I pulled the tape off of the exterior side...these look really good. I am excited to maybe polish the rudder so you can all admire my work.

1 hour today, 50 rivets. Wuhoo!
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Post Title: More Stiffeners, Some Skeleton
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Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:45:10 +0000
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Yes, Friday night! That means instead of being social, I get to stay home and work on the airplane. Wuhoo!

Anyway, after a good workout, I spent a couple hours in the airplane factory. First thing, I grabbed the two primed stiffeners from last night, and got them backriveted in.
#5 and #6 of 8 on the right rudder skin.


Then, I edge finished, scuffed, cleaned, and primed the last two stiffeners on the right skin. Once they were dry, I got those installed permanently, too.
#7 and #8 (two on the far left) of 8 on the right rudder skin.?


I couldn't help myself. I flipped the skin over, and removed the tape to reveal a very smooth skin. I like backriveting. The backriveting plate left some very very very small marks within about a dime sized area around the rivet heads, but I know those will polish out.
A finished right rudder skin. Those wrinkles in the vinyl in the middle where there when the skin was delivered. It didn't look like there was any damage underneath.


After spending some time admiring the right skin, I decided to finish the edges for the left skin's stiffeners. After that, they got scuffed, cleaned, and set up on my fancy priming bench. Here they are ready for primer.
8 left skin stiffeners, ready for primer.


While those dried on one side, I decided to dive on in to the rudder skeleton. First, they have you cleco the R-904 root rib to the R-902 Spar. Tough step, but I managed.
Started on the rudder skeleton.


Then, because it was late, I had to skip the steps with the drilling and the fabricating the "shim" etc. I moved on to clecoing the spar reinforcement plates in. Here are the top two.
Fancy pants, huh?


Then, they have you grab the R-909? (tip rib) and R-912 counterbalance rib and cleco those to the spar after fluting, if necessary. It was necessary.
R-912 Counterbalance rib on the left, R-909 tip rib on the right. You can see I fluted the tip rib too much toward the aft end (top of the picture). I'll straighten it out tomorrow.


After that, they have you cleco the dreaded counterbalance skin to those two ribs. I've heard bad things about this step (mostly difficulty due to bad fit). Well, it was slightly difficult, but mainly due to perfect fit. If you start from the front (bottom right of the picture), everything will work out, but the fit is pretty precise. There is no slop in these prepunched kits.
The right side of the counterbalance skin clecoed on.


Then, I flipped the assembly over and clecoed on the left side of the counterbalance skin.
Left side clecoed on. (Hey, you can see my fancy fluting pliers back there.)


By then, the remaining stiffeners were dry on one side, so I shot the other side with primer and headed in for bed. (For blogging, and then bed.)
asdf


66 rivets today, all backriveted. Also, I passed 1000 rivets set today. A little bit of a milestone, although I think there are something like 20,000 rivets in the whole kit. So, I guess I'm 5% there.

Good night.
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Post Title: Finished Backriveting Stiffeners
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Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:00:19 +0000
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I didn't get to spend very much time in the shop today, but the half hour I did spend on the project was a good half hour.

I grabbed the stiffeners that I had primed on Friday night and laid (layed?) them on the left rudder skin.
Primed stiffeners, ready to be backriveted.


Then, I backriveted them.
All done.


Sorry about the lack of pictures.

116 backriveted flush rivets set.
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Post Title: Initial Rudder Assembly, Fabrication, and Drilling
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Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:00:58 +0000
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With the girlfriend out running errands, and the house to myself, I got to make as many loud noises as I wanted this morning.

First, I jumped back to the part in the directions where they have you enlarge the hole on the flange of the rudder bottom rib to 3/8". I started with a #30, then #21, #12, 3/16", 7/32" and finally, 3/8". (I may have also used a 5/32" in there, too, I can't remember. You can see it turned out pretty well. I didn't take a picture every step, just a few so you get the idea.
Here's the #21.

#12

I think this might be the 7/32."

Finally, with the 3/8" bit. Looks good to me.


Then I disassembled to check the hole clearance on the flange.
Think I have 2 times diameter? Nope. Apparently, this is okay, since it is not a structural hole. This is as designed.


Next, time to fabricate R-917 (shim) per the plans. From other builders websites, I've gathered you are supposed to use the Trim Bundle, Emp.
Here's the trim bundle, fished out from one of my workbench shelves.


To give you an idea of what is included, there are 4 pieces of .032" on the left, 3 pieces of .016" in the middle, and 3 pieces of .025" on the right.
0.032", 0.016", and 0.025", respectively.


The plans call out .032".
Here's my piece.


Of course, it's 2024. You can see the callout on the plans in the lower right corner.
I drew some lines on the piece...


I transfered the dimensions...
Dimensions!

Then, I made a rough pass with snips, and finished up on the scotchbrite wheel.
Scotchbrite wheel, compressor, and the newly fabricated R-917 shim.


I centerpunched the two outer hole markings, and drilled one hole to #30 per the plans, and one to #40. My plan is to matchrill the #30 hole (top one in the following picture), cleco it down, and then enlarge (matchdrill) the #40 hole to a #30 once I have everything fitted correctly. Here, you can see the lower hole in the shim doesn't line up perfectly.
Lower hole doesn't line up perfectly. I used a file and the scotchbrite pad to clean up the right edge before enlarging to #30.


Next, they have you lay in the Rudder horn (R-405PD), cleco, and matchdrill the 4 upper #30 holes (right side of the picture).
The clecos on the right are holding R-606PP (spar reinforcement) on the forward side of the spar.


Next, they want you to round out the edge of R-405PD horn so it lays in nicely with the R-904 bottom rib. You can see here, it won't work as is.
No good. Must round.


The scotchbrite wheel made quick work of this.
Much better.


After clecoing everything back to the spar, I flipped it over and matchdrilled all of the remaining #30 holes through the reinforcement plate, spar, shim, and rudder horn.
Matchrilling glory.


Then, I loaded up the #40 bit and matdrilled all of the holes in the counterbalance skin. Pictures of matchrilling aren't interesting, so I just took one once I was done.
Boring matchdrilling.


THEN YOU GET TO CLECO ON THE SKIN! Wuhoo! Left side first...
Wuhoo! (Saggy trailing edge wuhoo, but wuhoo nonetheless.)

Then flip the bad boy over...
Ready to cleco on the right side.


And cleco on the right skin.
It's starting to look like a rudder.


Then, slide in the trailing edge wedge.
Trailing edge wedge...


****, I started clecoing it in backwards. This v shape is supposed to go forward, and the pointy end back.
It would be kind of a cool looking trailing edge, but...no.


Once I got it in the right direction, I took a step back to admire how much my rudder looks like a rudder. Then, I matchdrilled the remaining holes in the skin. There were a hole bunch, but I only took one picture at the end. Here you go.
The two skins completely matchdrilled.


Once that was done, I grabbed the rudder brace, and heeding some great advice from other builders, drew my cut line north of the guide holes.
Here's the left side.


And here's the right side after the cut.
The right side guide hole is underneath the sticker. Sorry.


And the right side after cutting. You can see I stayed away from the line when using my snips. I'll approach it carefully with the scotchbrite wheel.
asdf


After getting the brace close, I went through a couple fit and trim iterations before finally getting a good fit and getting the holes matchrilled.
Good fit, and matchrilled successfully.

With the brace complete, it was time to move on to the fairing attach strips. Here's the piece they want you to use.
Rudder attach strip stock. Say that three times fast.


After trimming to 18 inches.
Two attach strips and a pieces of scrap.


Then, I transferred the dimensions on the drawing to the two strips
Ready to snip.


Then, I used the snips, clamped the two pieces together, and took them over to the scotchbrite wheel for some cleanup.
Here they are, ready to be drilled to the rudder.


To drill them on the rudder (without a lot of guidance from the manual), I clamped them in place (once I figured out where I wanted them, which appears to be up to you). I left about 1/16" between the diagonal cutout on the strips and the back of the rudder brace.
Clamped, and ready to start drilling.


Because I generally don't like drilling into my own fingers, I use two clamps around two holes, drill those two, and put a cleco in the second hole.
Clamp and drill, drill, cleco. Clamp and drill, drill, cleco. Down the line.


Here's the after shot for the right attach strip.
Right attach strip complete.


I repeated the process for the left side. You don't need any pictures, do you? Fine. Here's an after shot.
Both attach strips done.

Finally, I found one rivet on the left skin that I wanted to drill out.
Sitting a little proud, eh?


#40 dril, right down the middle.
Centerpunched and drilled.


Then, I flip the bit around (or grab the back of a spare bit), stick it in the hole and...
Ready to remove the rivet.


BEND THAT MOFO OUT!
The rivet head pulling out.


After that, you are usually left with the shaft and shop head of the rivet stuck in the hole.
Part of the rivet remains.


You can use a punch or drill bit to push it out the backside.
Here's the hole, ready for a new rivet. Looks like I may need to clean up the hole a little on the right side. I'll take a closer look once I pull the skins off the skeleton.


Great day today. No rivets set, and one drilled out, but a ton of productive loud noise time while the girlfriend was out doing errands.
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N941WR said:

I agree with you, regarding starting with the VS. It is so much easier to build and improve your riveting skills.

Keep pounding!

Click to expand...

This is the first thing I would tell a new builder. Do the VS first.

Bill, I've owed you a phone call for about 2 years. Need to connect this weekend.

Post Title: Disassembled Rudder to Start Deburring
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Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:00:22 +0000
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I liked having the rudder assembled on the workbench over the last day or so. I got to walk by it going in and out of the house admiring how much it looked like an airplane part. I found myself saying, "that's a rudder" every time I walked by.

Nevertheless, the next step in the construction manual has you disassemble the parts and start the long process of prep for priming and riveting.
Some of the rudder parts, disassembled.


I got everything taken apart yesterday, and then second-guessed myself. I am planning on attaching most, if not all, of the fiberglass fairings with screws and nutplates, which will require the usual dimpling/countersinking of the components. Here's the catch. Take the rudder bottom fairing attach strips. If I disassemble, deburr, scuff, clean, prime, and rivet them back to the skin/bottom rib, I'll be drilling through primed parts when I go to install the bottom fairing (and nutplates). Do people re-prime these parts (mainly the holes) after they are riveted to the almost complete rudder?

I'm thinking that maybe I should re-assemble everything, layout the spacing for the fastener attach points now, then go ahead and do the normal disassemble, debur, scuff, clean, prime, and rivet dance. I'm going to pose this question on VAF.

Anyway, with everything disassembled, I started to mark and deburr parts. In preparation for edge finishing, I removed all of the safety covers for the scotchbrite wheel side of my 6" grinder.
Removed the scotchbrite wheel.

Removed all safety covers.

Reattached scotchbrite wheel.

Ready for some edge-finishing.


Then, I got back to deburring some of the smaller parts. When I finished deburring the holes in a part, I usually take a scotchbrite pad and "mark" the part with a few scuffs. That way, I know all the holes are deburred, and it is time to move on to edge finishing.

I only spent an hour outside today. Had to let the food digest before working out, then it was off to bed.
yawn] I'm still tired, though.
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Post Title: Installed Air Regulator/Oiler
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Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:40:39 +0000
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Tonight, I didn't get any work done on the airplane, but I did finally stop by Northern Tool and Equipment for some air compressor accessories. To get my Harbor Freight air regulator and oiler up and running, I needed a second air hose, some quick disconnect fittings, and some thread seal tape. Here are the purchases.
Northern Tool and Equipment purchases.


Then, I used some thread seal tape, and installed the pressure gauge.
Pressure gauge, ready to be installed.


Next, I installed two male fittings on either side of the regulator/oiler.
Ready to be mounted to the workbench.


After taping the rest of the quick disconnect units with thread seal tape, I took everything out to the shop and started getting stuff mounted up.
Here's another lightweight hose I bought. This will go between the compressor and the regulator/oiler.


Then, I hooked it up and played with it a little to make sure it worked. I'm still not positive on it's operation (I now have two regulators in series, but I think it should work).

I'm not marking any construction time for tonight, but I will record the entry under tools.
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Post Title: Tools from Harbor Freight, Van's
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Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:00:05 +0000
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I didn't get any work done on the airplane tonight, again.

I did manage to stop by Harbor Freight and receive an order from Van's. Just for effect, I've taken a picture of the only two adjustable wrenches I own.
So sad...


I found a coupon for these adjustable wrenches, except when I got back home, I saw the coupon didn't take. Is it work the $2 to drive all the way back there? Probably not.
OH YEAH, look at these bad boys! $10 from Harbor Freight.


Next, I grabbed a new utility knife. I have a couple from 1963 or something, so this should be a good upgrade.
nice blue locking utility knife.


Here's my modest order from van's. I had drilled out a lot of An470AD4-6 rivets on the horizontal and vertical stabilizers, and I had to use AN426AD3-3.5s instead of AD3-3s on the rudder stiffeners, so I ordered 0.1 lb of each to kind of replenish my supplies. Also, there is the 3.5 oz container of fuel tank sealant to use on the trailing edge of the rudder. It's coming up, you know.
The Van's order.


Finally, at HF, I noticed this furniture dolly. It's not very big, but for $7, I figured it was worth it given that it would take me more money to buy the supplies to make one.
A furniture dolly for some future aircraft-related need.


I need to actually create some aluminum dust soon. It's driving me crazy seeing the rudder skin with the beautiful stiffener riveting just sitting on the workbench, all lonely and such.
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Post Title: Primed R-918s and R-608

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Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:16:37 +0000
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After a whole 10 days on vacation, a few flight delays, cancelled flights, rebooking to a city 6 hours away from home, lost bags, malfunctioning 737s, and a broken down rental car, I finally made it into the shop.

I know I wasn't going to be able to put in hours and hours of work, but in the words of Bob, "baby steps."

First of all, while I was gone, I got an order in from Avery. It contained the NAS 1097 "Oops" rivet kit, and two sets, both 1/8", one straight, and one double offset. These were relatively cheap ($8 and $20, respectively) and I believe they will come in very handy. Here's the merchandise.
I love buying tools. It's like crack, but more legal.


After unpacking the new tools, I finished deburring and edge finishing the R-918s.
A deburred and edge-finished R-918. I'm not sure which side this due to the glare in the picture. But you don't really care, though, do you? They are identical parts (although, make sure to keep them separate, because they've been matchdrilled to the rudder skins).


I shot a little primer on one side of those two pieces and started deburring and edge finishing R-608PP, which is the uppermost spar reinforcement plate. I shot a coat on one side of that, and the other side of the R-918s.
Ready to prime R-918s.

R-918s and R-608PP primed. They are still wet, which is why you can see the reflection of the garage insulation on the R-918s.


While waiting for those coats to dry, I unpacked my Oops rivet kit.
Which one of these labels isn't like the other?


All done and labeled.
I didn't have any more room in my rivet "briefcase" so I'll leave them in the included case.


Then, in a similar manner to Brad Oliver's explanation page (another shot here), here's my shot of some NAS 1097 rivets next to their AN426 counterparts.
AD3-3, 3.5, and 4 (AN426 and NAS 1097 of each to compare smaller heads for the same size rivet) and on the far right, an AN426AD3-3.5 and a NAS1097 AD4-3.5. Same size head.


From my understanding the AD3 (smaller) sizes are used when a smaller rivet head allows you to countersink thinner material (instead of having to dimple) in non-structural areas (dimples aid in the strength of the riveted pieces). Mostly, they are used where flush rivets are required to attach nutplates (so you don't have to dimple the nutplates, which is apparently difficult).

The larger size (AD4) rivets are used primarily when you have messed up an exterior hole during riveting or drilling out a badly set rivet that you have to enlarge the hole. The smaller heads on the larger rivets match the regular sized rivet heads.

Once I got primer on those three parts, I put them back on the "table o' small rudder parts", to give you a good understanding of how much more tedious prep work I have to do before I can start riveting parts together. I can't really complain. I love this stuff.
3 of 11 parts primed (and these are just the small parts).


A short half an hour today. Felt good.

NEXT DAY UPDATE:

****!

Because the R-918 (rudder bottom fairing attach strips) go under the rudder skin and bottom rib, they need to be dimpled, and I forgot to do that last night.

Let's see, rudder skin = regular #40 dimple dies, bottom rib = #40 tank dies, which means I'll have to use the #40 tank dies on the R-918s, too. I wonder what the dies will do to a part that is already primed. I'll give it a shot, take some pictures of the results, and re-prime if necessary. Boo.
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Post Title: More Small Rudder Parts Priming and Devinyling
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Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:00:53 +0000
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First thing after today's realization that I had forgotten to dimple before priming, I rushed home and grabbed the tank dies to prime the #40 holes.
Let's get ready to dimple...


No problem to dimple after priming. (There was a little bit of twist after dimpling, but no big deal, the rivets will hold this thing together.)
Slight twisting after dimpling.


The only way you can tell I dimpled after priming is that the dreaded dimple circle is visible, because the outer edge of the dies mars, (maybe polishes?) the primer a little. You can see it in the pictures.
Dimpling after priming worked fine. See the circle marks?


Here's the other side.
Looks good to me.


After I finished both, here they are on the table. Crisis averted. (Not really, I would have just re-primed them.)
These will do.


Then, inside to grill some dinner, then back out to do more edge finishing, cleaning, and priming. I grabbed R-606PP and R-607PP (lower and middle spar reinforcements) along with R-617 (shim) and finished the edges with the scotchbrite wheel. Once complete. I took them inside, cleaned them with dawn detergent, and brought them back out to dry and prime. Here's a priming shot.
From left to right: R-606PP, R-607PP, and R-617.

Next, I looked around and grabbed the R-912 counterbalance rib and did some edge finishing and dimpling. Here's a dimpling shot.
Dimples!


Same deal with with the R-903 tip rib and the R-710 horn brace. Here's the horn brace.
More dimples.


After the primer dried on the three pieces I primed tonight, I put them back on the table and examined my progress. Still a long way to go.
A shot of the "table of small rudder parts."


Enough work outside for the night. I grabbed the soldering gun, my wooden straightedge, and the R-913 counterbalance skin and headed inside to devinyl.
Pretty, but maybe overkill.


I decided to leave some of the vinyl on here to save on primer on the inside and protect the finish on the outside. I think the amount of primer weight I am going to save by masking with the vinyl is minuscule compared to the parts I will inevitably need to re-prime. But, if I pulled off all the vinyl, and primed the entire interior surface, I would always know I was carrying around more primer than I needed to be. (It's all about figuring out what you can sleep with at night.) While I am sure I will add more than plenty of unnecessary weight in other areas (all of the nutplates I am going to add), not doing this would make me feel lazy.
R-913 Counterbalance skin interior.


Next, I grabbed the R-901-R (right rudder skin)0 and pulled it inside to devinyl. Notice on the left that I made the cuts on the trailing edge (rudder is upside down in this picture) but haven't pulled off the vinyl? I am going to leave the vinyl on while I prime the rest of the bare metal areas, then remove the trailing edge vinyl. This area doesn't need to be primed, as it will get scuffed up with a scotchbrite before using Pro-seal to glue the two skin trailing edges and trailing edge wedge together.
Look at me, I've thought ahead!

Another shot of the right rudder skin, this time right-side-up. (Also, my fancy-pants wooden straight edge and a glass of 7 Deadly Zins Zinfandel.)


Next, I flipped that bad boy over and did the exterior. Here's a shot before I've pulled some of the vinyl off.
I probably should have pulled more of the vinyl off of the leading edge, but it was just two more lines, and now I have a little protection on the leading edge while I am rolling and assembling.


Repeat for the left skin, and then I took both back outside and stored the left skin on the top shelf of my second toolbench.
I'm embarrassed that I don't have a one-piece shelf for the top shelf of my workbench. Don't judge me.


And a finished shot of the right skin, back out on the workbench.
I like these devinyled pieces. Can't explain it, but I like them.


I was using the clock in the kitchen to mark my progress, and decided I was going to stop at 9:30pm to head to bead...except (yeah, you know where this is going)...I forgot to reset that clock after the time change. It was actually 10:30pm and I had put in 2.5 hours. Great for airplane progress, bad for my sleep debt. I'm not going to put in any time tomorrow, need to catch up on sleep. See you in a couple days.
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Post Title: Primed R-902 Rudder Spar
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Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:00:50 +0000
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I was getting the itch to work on the airplane a little, so I tackled the R-902 Rudder Spar today. First thing, deburring. I know I have plenty of pictures of deburring , but I took a closeup of a few holes.
Hole on the left is deburred, hole on the right is not. This is the topside, though, so the raw hole on the right doesn't even have really bad burrs. The weird **** on the left is just a piece of metal left over from deburring, it's not really messed up.


Here's an action shot of me using the oversized bit to deburr.
Action shot!


Here's the spar, deburred, and ready for scuffing, cleaning, and priming. Sorry for all the pictures tonight.
R-902 Rudder Spar


Here's a picture of me scuffing with my maroon scotchbrite pad. For some reason, I like this step in the airplane building process.
Left half is the raw spar, right half has been scuffed.


Then, Ginger noticed I was in the garage working, and since the garage temperature was the same as the house tonight, I left the door open.
"Jack, come out here and let's see what dad is doing."


Jack came to see what was going on.
Jack and ginger, curious as always. (They are collarless due to the baths they just got.)


To scuff the inside, I decided to clamp the spar down to the table. It makes scuffing slightly easier, and I can use two hands on the edges.
Some of my nice (but cheap) clamps from Harbor Freight earning their keep.


Next up, dimpling. The construction manual warns to maybe grind down the dies to make sure not to gouge the spar web. I didn't seem to have any issues with clearance.
Dimpling with #40 tank dies.


Then, I took the spar inside and cleaned it with dawn dishwashing detergent. Then back outside to dry for priming. Here's the spar in my fancy paint booth setup.
Spar, ready to be shot with primer.

I did the forward side of the spar first. (Notice the open garage door, I'm trying not to kill too many brain cells with the priming.)
Forward side of the spar primed.

A shot of the lower portion of the spar.


Then, after going inside to refill the wine glass (to let primer dry), play with the pups (let primer dry), and hang out with the girlfriend (let primer dry), I went back outside to prime the aft side of the spar.
The bright orange thing on the spar near the right 2x4 support is the reflection of a warning sticker above the garage door. The primer is still wet. I didn't see this until I uploaded the pictures.


After another half hour or so, I put the spar back on the table and clecoed the R-606PP (Lower Spar Reinforcement) and R-607PP (Middle Spar Reinforcement) to the spar, along with the appropriate K1000-6 nutplates.
I'm getting close to riveting again!


A closeup of the nutplate
I always get so excited when I get to this point.


That was pretty much it, except for more experimentation with the "macro" setting on my camera.
Eh. No reason for this picture. Just experimenting.


Silly me, though, I didn't get any pictures of it after it was reset. I was being lazy with the camera today. Sorry.

Next up, skin deburring and dimpling.
The holes on the right are the tip rib #40 holes. The ones on the left have been drilled to #30.


After deburring, scuffing and dimpling, we are ready for priming.
The top of the right rudder skin after deburring, scuffing and dimpling.


Then, more deburring, scuffing and dimpling.
I didn't forget the hole on the bottom of the picture. This hole is match-drilled with the rudder tip and then dimpled to #30.


After cleaning, I shot a little primer on the skin.
Primed right rudder skin.

I had a very specific order here. First, deburr, scuff, dimple and prime the top, forward edge, and bottom edge. Then, while the primer is drying, devinyl the aft edge (vinyl used as masking for the primer), deburr, scuff and dimple the aft edge. This edge doesn't get primed, as we'll use the fuel tank sealing instructions with Pro-seal to glue the trailing edges together.

After scuffing the aft edge, I started pulling off the blue vinyl from the interior of the skins.
This just looks so nice.

Another shot of me devinyling.


Then, I spent a couple minutes making the slot at the bottom of the skin a little bigger. One of the flanges from the control horn fits in here, and during initial assembly, there was some interference.
Notch enlarged.


And the left skin, primed.
Got the left skin primed and ready for devinyling.


Ame thing on this skin, while the primer was drying, I devinyled the trailing edge, scuffed, and dimpled.
Scuffed and dimpled the trailing edge.


Here's the left skin after devinyling. I'll store this skin until final riveting. Now, back to the skeleton.
Shot 1 of 2 of the prepped left rudder skin.

Shot 2 of 2 of the prepped left rudder skin.


In the middle of the day, I ran out of primer and scotchbrite pads, so I ran out for both.
Napa 7220 Self Etching Primer.


They didn't have any maroon on the shelf, but they had some grey. I asked the guy out front, and he went to the back and grabbed 3 unpackaged pieces. Usually, there are $5 or $6 for the three. He gave them to me for a couple dollars, which was nice.
I like them cut in about 2" x 2" squares. Good to go until the end of the tail kit, I'm guessing.


I had some trouble with dimpling the last three holes in the rudder bottom rib. I drilled and countersunk a hole in a spare piece of steel I had, then realized it was too far from the edge to work. Awesome. Here's a shot of my second attempt.
The new hole is on the bottom right. After countersinking, I used a rivet and my flush set to dimple the rib. Not perfect, but it'll work.

Then, I moved on to some riveting.
This is the spar and one of the spar reinforcements.


While I was moving everything around getting it ready for riveting, I broke my first tool. Now, it was about $0.50 from Harbor Freight, but I was still upset.
RIP cheap plastic clamp. (I'm lying. I actually gut the orange part off the other side and threw the clamp into a box somewhere. I'm sure it will come in handy at some point, even if it doesn't have the orange pads.)


Rivets were looking good, until the one to the right of the nutplate. Doh!
Which one of these is not like the other?


After a successful drill out (#2 of the day), I finished setting the rest of the spar reinforcements and snapped these two pictures.
Middle spar reinforcement.

Upper spar reinforcement.


That's 16 set so far.

Then I mocked up the R-405PD Rudder Horn, R-710 Horn Brace, R-917 Shim, R-902 Spar, and R-904 Bottom Rib. Some people need to use blind rivets in some of these holes, but I figured I could do it with all solid rivets.
This is what I need to end up with after riveting.


I figured out that if I take off the R-904 bottom rib, I can reach in from above (bottom right of the picture) and get the horn brace to rudder horn rivets here, then slide the forward flange of the bottom rib under the rudder horn and get those from the lightening hole. Here I am setting the horn brace to rudder horn rivets.
I think this is going to work out well.

Another shot from further away.


Here's all four of those set (set nicely, if I may add).
Horn brace to rudder horn rivets.


20 rivets set so far. Then I moved on to the R-606PP Reinforcement plate to R-902 Spar to R-917 Shim to R-405PD Rudder horn rivets. These need to be AN470AD4-7 rivets, which are LONG. I did have to drill one of them out. That's #3 for the day. Boo.
This is an AN470AD4-7 rivet after drilling out. This is a long rivet.

But, I managed to reset it okay and get the others in with no trouble.
R-606PP to R-902 to R-917 to R-405PD rivets.


23 set. I scratched the R-405PD horn a little, so I scotchbrited it out, and shot some primer in there.
Some primer to cover the scratch.


Next, I slid the flange of the bottom rib under the rudder horn and lined up the holes. Now I need to drop some rivets in here.
Ready for riveting.


First, I set the horn brace to bottom rib rivets.
26 rivets set so far. These are looking good.


26 set. Finally, I set three more which are reinforcement plate to spar rivets.
These are above the bottom rib, so they are only reinforcement plate to spar rivets. Easy.


I started to rivet the complicated stuff together and LOOK WHAT I DID!
I think this is hilarious. Think I should drill it out?


This happened because I was bucking from above and shooting from below. The gun jumped around cause I was supporting it's weight instead of letting gravity help me. That's a no-no.

It was pretty easy to drill out (#4 for the day), here's an inside shot; back to square one.
Ready to try again.


After setting the first two, a picture.
These look good.


And after much consternation (including using my double offset set as a bucking bar), I got the two outside rivets bucked.
Finally done with riveting for the day.


30 rivets set, 4 drilled out. Lastly, I matchrdrilled the E-614-020 to R-912 rib. This was a piece of pie.
Rudder counterbalance matchrilled to the counterbalance rib. Also, there's the hardware that will be used to fasten these two together.


4.5 hours today. Not bad for a Saturday afternoon.
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Post Title: Dimpled R-912 Counterbalance Rib
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Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:00:19 +0000
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Not a huge day today, but I did go shopping. Recently, the self-etching primer has been getting to me unless I am completely outside the garage while priming. Sometimes, I can always be completely outside, so this might make it bearable in the garage.
MEK, a respirator, and some latex gloves.


When I started looking around the shop, I found this monstrosity just laying there, dead, out in the open. He must have crawled through the spider spray I laid down around the perimeter. He's huge.
That's a quarter.


Anyway, I am not too happy with the outside rivet I installed yesterday. I ended up using a double offset set as the bucking bar, and I just don't like the shop heads.
Bad shop head there on the left.

Same there on the right.


I got them drilled out, and figured that the materials on both sides were thick enough to ignore the "shop head on the side with the thinnest material" rule. I put the machined heads in here, and bucked from the front.
These look much better, even though they aren't all facing the same direction.


Here they are from the other side.
I am much happier with these.

Then, on to the counterbalance. Because I don't have a #10 dimple die, I decided to countersink these, and use them as the female die.
First try. Obviously to shallow, but I wanted to approach it slowly.

Another iteration.

Another iteration.

Check it with the screw. Nope, not yet.

Closer.

Another try.

There we go.


Then, after trying a few things to see how to dimple the rib, I ended up putting the screw in the hole and using my squeezer (with no "upper" set so the screw goes through the hole in the yoke) as the dimple die.
This worked surprisingly well.


Here are the final dimples. If I had it to do over again, I would spring for the #10 dies. I'm sure I"ll have to use them throughout the project. I'm going to put them on the list.
Final dimples. Not perfect, but good enough.


2 rivets drilled out. Half an hour. Not bad for a busy Sunday.
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Post Title: More Rudder Parts Priming
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Tue, 23 Mar 2010 02:00:56 +0000
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A quick night in the shop tonight. The next step on the rudder is to get the counterbalance rib and counterbalance skin installed on the skeleton.

First thing, I need to bevel the outside edge of the counterbalance skin to allow less of a bump as the leading edge of the rudder skin jumps from the spar to the counterbalance skin. I clecoed the rudder skins and counterbalance skin together and drew a line on the counterbalance skin, forward of which I don't want any beveling or scuffing or primer.
Right side of the counterbalance skin marked.

Then, I put a piece of tape down to protect the part of the skin I didn't want to touch.


I repeated these steps for the other side, then beveled in the indicated places (over the spar and tip rib locations along the edge) and scuffed with a scotchbrite pad.
All scuffed up.


Then, I dimpled with the tank dies (because the rudder skin's normal dimples will sit in these "tank" or larger dimples.)
Dimpled, ready for priming.


Then, I prepped the inside of the skins and primed the whole thing.
Counterbalance skin waiting to dry.


While I was priming, I decided to edge prep, scuff, dimple, clean, and prime the R-912 counterbalance rib, also. Here it is drying.
R-912 drying.


Then, I pulled the vinyl off the inside of the counterbalance skin.
I saved a ton of primer weight here. /sarcasm off.


And that was all for the night. 30 minutes of airplane working glory.
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Post Title: Riveted R-912 Counterbalance Rib
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Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:00:48 +0000
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After priming the R-912 counterbalance rib and R-913 counterbalance skin last night, I thought I would get those installed on the skeleton. First thing to do is check the plans for a rivet callout.

What!? No rivet callout? That means I have to think!
No rivet callout for the R-912 to R-902 spar attachment.


I grabbed the shortest AN470AD rivet I could find...AD4-4. That seemed to be good.
This one will work.


And an after picture. Wuhoo!
Successfully set rivets.


I squeezed these. I'm still not totally happy with my squeezers ability to squeeze AD4 rivets.
Not too shabby.


Then, I grabbed the counterbalance skin and clecoed it on. My squeezer is only a 3" yoke, so I can't reach any of these holes.
My squeezer isn't long enough to reach these holes, and the girlfriend is outside helping me with some deck chair refinishing, so no rivet gun tonight.


Another picture of those two clecoed on the skeleton.
It's nice outside, so I had the garage door open. Lot's of sunlight in the afternoons.


Finally, I got the left skin clecoed on to check for fit and complete any remaining edge-finishing required before riveting.
Left rudder skin to counterbalance skin holes.


To be determined: whether I should edge-roll the forward edge of the rudder skin where it overlaps the counterbalance skin.
It looks good now, but might pull up when I rivet. I think I'll edge roll this. "Avery? Please send me your edge roller tool. Thank you."


Two rivets set today. Half hour total.
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Post Title: Got some skin...riveted
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Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:00:45 +0000
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After having performed the last of the rudder skin prepping the other day, I was ready to get riveting.

First thing, I pulled most of the clecos off of the leading edge so I could have access to the upper forward edge of the skin. It's hard to see in this picture, but I gently "edge-rolled" the leading edge so the lap joint would sit flush after riveting.
Be very gentle here so you don't get a crease.


Because my trim job on the blue vinyl was a little long, I trimmed about another inch off. You can see the very slight edge roll in the reflection of the two clecos just left of the joint. I'm happy with it, and it sits very well on top of the counterbalance skin.
Man, there is a lot of dust.


Then, I started riveting. Here, You can see I've riveted the counterbalance skin to counterbalance rib joint, and every other hole down the leading edge. I'm just removing clecoes here to start finishing the leading edge.
Beautiful day to be working outside.


This was after about 50 rivets had been set. We headed in for dinner at this point.
Nice rivets, so screwups, but not as nice as the backriveted stiffeners. I thought about backriveting here, but I would only be able to backrivet one side, and I didn't want them being dramatically different.

One more picture before dinner. If you look closely, you can see the very nice lap joint.?

And a picture of the shop heads. A few of these (maybe 5th from the right and similar) will need a few more hits with the gun, they don't look quite set enough.


Before dinner, I went and got my mail, and my internal rudder stop had shown up. $25 to get the external stops off the airplane. Worth it for me, although I think Craig is making a killing on these. If you want one, order them at the VAF posting.
Internal rudder stop. I'll install (and take plenty of pictures) once I get the rudder done.


After dinner, the girlfriend wanted to work out in the garage some more (what a crappy girlfriend; she wants to work in the garage all the time... /sarcasm off), so I finished up the left side of the rudder.
Left side of the rudder, done.


I was going to take more pictures, but I got distracted because I riveted the skin to bottom rib WITHOUT INCLUDING THE FAIRING ATTACH STRIP.

Awesome, that was 16....no....17 (i messed one up putting it back in) rivets I had to drill out.

Perfectly.

Good.

Rivets.

<sigh>

But, I did get solid rivets in all of the holes near the horn brace. My 3" yoke with a 1/2" flush set kind of looks like a longeron yoke, so I was able to reach all of these.
Here's a closeup of the attach strip after everything was all said and done.


All in all: 84 rivets set, 17 drilled out (ugh!) over an hour and a half.
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Post Title: Got some more skin...riveted
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Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:00:37 +0000
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Before dinner, I managed to finish off the last few things on the right rudder skin and get it clecoed and riveted to the rudder skeleton. I still have to install the counterbalance, finish and prime the tip rib, and get those installed before moving on to the trailing edge, and then leading edge rolling.

I'm holding off on the counterbalance because of the fasteners. The plans call out a AN509 screw and a AN365-1032 self-locking nut to hold the counterbalance in.

I know the FAA (AC 43-13) has deemed that an acceptable method for securing something permanently, but given the fact that I won't even be able to inspect these fasteners (well, I could tell if they were loose if the screws turn from the bottom side, but would have to open up the tip rib to tighten them if needed), I wanted something a little more permanent (maybe not actually any better, but I'll be able to sleep better at night).

I'm going to use MS17825-3 Locking castle nuts. They are also self-locking, but these will allow me to drill a hole in the screw and insert a cotter pin. I would bet that I also stick some red loctite on them. It would be a good bet.

Then I started looking around at the other fasteners used on the tail. All of the flight controls are installed using self-locking nuts, no cotter pins or safety wires anywhere.

I thought it would be easy ($20?) to put in drilled bolts with self-locking and cotter pinned nuts, so I made the following order from ACS. This should cover all of the counterweight and flight control connection installations for the tail.
<pre>17.00 of MS17825-3 LOCKING CASTLE NUT
1.00 of MS17825-4 CASTLE NUT
1.00 of AN3-10 BOLT DRILLED
4.00 of AN3-5 BOLT DRILLED
6.00 of AN3-7 BOLT DRILLED
100.00 of MS24665-132 COTTER PIN
1.00 of AN4-14 BOLT DRILLED</pre>
Then I got started on riveting. I didn't take these pictures until after I had gotten everything done, so no intermediate shots. Sorry.
Bottom edge of the right rudder skin. This time, I didn't forget the fairing attach strip. (I need to figure out what to do about the last two holes. I'd like to avoid blind rivets, but may need them after all.)

I got all the rivets my squeezer could reach. I'll have to buck these tomorrow.


There were only two rivets that needed to be drilled out (you can see both marked on the first picture today).
Here's one; the forward-most fairing attach strip rivet on the right side... the squeezer slipped.


Here's the other one. It's just sitting a little proud. Probably okay, but I am anal about this stuff.
Guess what I am planning on doing to this rivet.


Also, I noticed something about the alignment of the rudder top fairing attachment holes. Look at the holes on the left side of the picture (lined up from one side to the other) and then look at the holes on the right side. It appears as if Vans put the aft-most holes in slightly different spots so the fasteners wouldn't hit each other when installed due to the low clearance in that area.
At first I thought there was something wrong, but then realized they were just thinking ahead. Bravo.


One hour today. 18 rivets on the bottom edge, 48 on the leading edge, and 6 where I could reach on the counterbalance skin to right rudder skin lap joint. That makes 72 total for tonight. 1333 total set, 85 drilled out for a batting (drilling) average of 6.38%.
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Post Title: Trailing Edge Angle Work
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Sat, 27 Mar 2010 21:55:08 +0000
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I didn't get in a lot of work today, but an hour on the trailing edge isn't too shabby.

First thing, unpack the Lowes bounty. I picked up a 6' piece of aluminum angle (for the trailing edge work) a long (36") backriveting plate, a 36" 3/4" diameter steel stake for leading edge rolling, and a smaller backriveting plate that I will be returning (picked that one up before finding the longer one).
Lowes bounty.


I grabbed the aluminum angle, and drilled both sides to the dirtier side of my MDF toolbench.
The cleco on either end will help it stay put.


Then I used the trailing edge (pre countersunk) to drill the trailing edge hole pattern in the aluminum angle.
I lined up the trailing edge with the aft edge of the angle so I could ensure things were straight both left and right and forward and aft.


Here's the angle after being Matchdrilled.
Let's do it.


Then, I conservatively deepened a countersunk hole in the trailing edge until it reached 0.2165"
Here's .187.

A little deeper...there we go.


After finishing both sides with this depth, I clecoed the skin together. Hmm, This doesn't look that good.
There's a pretty big gap in some places.


I was frustrated this didn't work out perfectly and I had some socializing to do, so I walked away. I'll come back to this tomorrow.
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Post Title: More Trailing Edge Work
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Sun, 28 Mar 2010 19:00:54 +0000
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After last night's bad fitting trailing edge, I decided to mark where the dimples weren't sitting properly, and enlarge the countersink ever so slightly.

The problem is that if you make the countersink large enough to accept the dimple perfectly, you create a knife-edge on the wedge. I guess that is why they have you use the aluminum as a drill guide for the countersink bit. After deburring the few knife edges that I got, it ended up working pretty well, but some of the holes are enlarged a little. With the pro-seal and the double-flush rivets, I am not too worried, but it still bugged me a little. It appears other builders have run into this issue as well.
Another shot of the not so good trailing edge before enlarging the countersinks.


Before I thought I would be able to tackle the rest of the trailing edge today, I got some of the "not-reachable-with-the-squeezer" rivets. here's a shot of some shop heads for the counterbalance skin to skin rivets.
Decent shop heads.?


I also finished up the rivets for the counterbalance rib.
More shop heads.


I also finished dimpling the tip rib and got it edge-finished, cleaned, and primed.
Waiting for primer to dry is like watching a pot of water boil. I can't complain though. It's dry to the touch in about 15 minutes.


Even though that was plenty of work for the day, I decided to tackle the trailing edge. I had everything I needed (Lowe's didn't have any RTV, but then I remembered I had some at home from my motorcycle habit, so I was in luck).
Here's me attempting to design a way to keep the trailing edges apart. This sucked, and I ended up using scrap 2x4 in between the stiffeners.


Here's my tools. RTV, MEK, gloves (I used about 8 pairs) and the tank sealant.
Tools.


Don the gloves, and get ready to mix. I had to read the directions about 15 times before I understood. The hardener (I think) is in the tube part of the plunger. You stick the black piece (behind the big tube) into the hole in the plunger, and as you push the plunger from the bottom to the top, you push the black part so the hardener in the plunger is expelled into the larger tube. Confused yet?
Ready to mix. (I've already cleaned all of the parts.


After pushing the black piece (back on the table now) up to start the mixing process, you twist the plunger head while moving up and down, which starts to mix.
This is after about 75 strokes, which is what the directions say you have to do. I had to keep going. (I may have been doing something wrong, I don't know.) I kept going after this to get a more uniform "black death" color.


Then you unscrew the plunger shaft and screw in the nozzle. Okay, where is my caulking gun? I don't have a caulking gun. OH MY GOD I FORGOT A CAULKING GUN.
Here it is fully mixed.

That's okay, I just stuck the handle of a large screwdriver down the tube and it worked great.
Here's one side, ready to be spread out. I put a dab between each hole, and then used a scrap piece of aluminum to spread it out nice and evenly.

Another shot. This seemed to be an appropriate amount of sealer.


After that step, things started getting messy, and I had to change gloves a lot (it gets everywhere), so I stopped taking pictures. After I got both sides covered, I laid it into the scuffed and cleaned trailing edge area of the skin.
Look how good that looks. (Also, you can see my 2x4 spacers.)

Another shot.


Of course, I did a marvelous job putting a perfectly penny sized glob of RTV on the last (aft rivet) of the stiffeners before I removed the wood spacers and closed up. (The wood spacer near the bottom of the rudder was a pain in my ***. I lifted up the trailing edge a little with the top skin, so it stopped squeezing the block, and of course the block slid down toward the front of the rudder. Of course now I can't let go, but I'm too far away from the other workbench to reach all of my long-reach tools. Ever see one of those situations where a guy has one foot in a boat and one foot on the dock, and he's stretching and stretching? That was me. Except I finally reached a BFS (big freaking screwdriver) and managed to get the block out without contaminating any tank sealant or RTV.
Here's a blurry shot of the bottom RTV glob. Glob is a technical term.


Then, I got the rudder clecoed to the angle, wiped off any excess sealant, and moved the hole thing to the top shelf of my workbench.
Storage, kind of. I'm going to leave this for a whole week while I start on the elevators.


I think it was 11 rivets. 2 hours before the trailing edge, one hour for the trailing edge. The next post is still from today, but I am tracking it in another section and in another column for total time, so it's getting its own post.
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Post Title: Started E-615PP Trim Reinforcement Plate
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Sun, 28 Mar 2010 21:00:16 +0000
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With the Pro-sealed rudder trailing edge on my top workbench shelf drying, I decided to tackle the elevator. Of course, the obligatory plans page change (although there are two elevator pages, and I'm going to have to come back to the rudder page soon, so I was all confused).
Left elevator page.


The only thing I felt up to tackling today was the E-615PP Trim Reinforcement Plate. I received my Oops rivets from Avery, so I thought I could get started on this small project.
I devinyled the plate, and clecoed it in place. The holes are a little confusing, so double check it is in correctly before putting drill to metal.


After match-drilling, I deburred and dimpled the #40 holes that attach the plate to the elevator skin. Then, I started on the nutplate holes. I am going to be using NAS1097 rivets here (smaller head than AN426 rivets) so I can countersink (instead of dimple) the holes here. That saves me from having to dimple the nutplate ears, which will save me a lot of hassle.
Here are the countersunk holes for the nutplate ears. You can see I am just shy of having a knife-edge hole. Perfect.


I need to order some more dimple dies this week (#6, #8, #10), so I am going to just take a big picture and call it a night.
Trim Reinforcement Plate.


This is so fun.

Half hour on the elevator today.
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Post Title: Paint Scheme Design
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Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:04:15 +0000
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Well, I broke down and bought the RV-7 and RV-9 version of the Model Airplane Color Design program for $14.95. Well worth it, as I have been able to create these two pictures pretty quickly.

I'd like to polish (represented by the grey paint), but grey paint would also be okay.
Here, all of the fiberglass parts are painted, and most of the rest of the airplane is polished.


One thing I noticed was that the bolts ACS sent me were not the same size as the bolts that vans sent me. I need to look into this before using any of them. It might be something obvious, but I need to research this a little.

While I was packing stuff away, I found this bearing in my hardware box. Notice anything funny? Like the NUTPLATE THAT IS SUPPOSE TO BE INSTALLED ON THE RUDDER?

AHHHHHHH!

But hey, those are the two rivets that didn't give me any trouble before, so maybe they'll be easy to drill out and replace. (Yeah, right.)
Uh oh, spaghetti-O.


Anyway, after much fiddling around with castle nuts, I re-read AC 43-13 and decided these locking nuts would be sufficient for the very permanent installation of the counterweight.
Counterweight installed. Looks like a lot of threads left over, but I double-checked, and it's right.


Before installing the tip rib, I snagged a picture of the RTV I installed on the last rivet of each stiffener set.
Looks weird because of the reflections, but you get the idea.


Another shot, just for fun.
I'm ready to install the tip rib now.


After squeezing 30 of the easy to reach rivets, I snagged this picture of the top of the rudder.
Tip rib mostly in.


Then, out of order from the manual (supposed to do the blind rivets first), I pulled the LP4-3's out and got those in.
First one...

All done.


I still have some things to do on the rudder:

?Let the pro-seal dry and rivet the trailing edge.
?drill out rivets and install missing nutplate.
?Drill out bad skin rivets (2, I think.)
?Tips

But, I'm getting close to another dog picture, which is always good.
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Post Title: Riveted Rudder Trailing Edge
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Thu, 01 Apr 2010 02:13:00 +0000
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Well, it's been 3 days since I prosealed the trailing edge, so I mentally prepared myself for the dreaded riveting of the trailing edge.
Here's the trailing edge. Hopefully, the pro-seal is dry.


Next, I pulled out all of the clecos and admired how straight it looks.
Looks straight. Let's take a closer look.

Straight as an arrow. (Before riveting.)


The clecos were easy to pull out, not a lot of pro-seal on them, and there was very little remaining in the holes. The usual step here, however, is to clean them up. Here's a before picture.
There's a little goop in there, but not much.


Here I am using a #40 in my fingers to scrape some of the pro-seal out.
This was tedious, but I want the rivets to sit nice and flush.

Here about how much came out of most of the holes.


Next up, put the rivets in the holes to prepare for backriveting.
Rivet in, ready to go.

Then tape to protect the skins.


And here's my new backriveting plate. I wanted a nice long piece. It's not quite as long as the trailing edge, but I didn't have to move it around very much.
New 36" backriveting plate.


And my setup. The power tools are holding the skin flat against the table and backriveting plate.
Ready to go.

Let's re-read the directions. HOly ****, the pro-seal gets everywhere.
I thought it was funny how I got sealant on the sealant step.


Alright, let's start riveting. First thing, set every tenth rivet about halfway.
Okay... every tenth rivet.


Everything was going smoothly until I got to this rivet. Can you see what I missed here?
How come there is no dimple for the rivet on the right. Uh oh.


I pulled the rivet out, put my male dimple die in the hole, and gave it a good whack with the hammer.
Rivet is out, where is my #40 male dimple die?

There it is. Not bad for forgetting to dimple.

With the rivet back in. This is the shop head side, so you won't even notice. In fact, I dare you to try to find this hole when the plane is done.


Back to riveting. I followed the directions and kept riveting every tenth, then fifth, then third, etc., until they were all halfway set.
A nice halfway set shop head.

Down the line...


Verifying that things are still straight.
Yup. Straight. Although I know why the picture is blurry. Apparently I left the cap off of the MEK. Oops.


So then I flipped the rudder over, and finished up, per the directions. Except a few things started going wrong (which is why I don't have any pictures.)

First, I must not have had the rudder down perfectly against the backriveting plate. A few of the manufactured heads were protruding from the skins. Luckily, they rivets were only half set, so most of them were able to be pushed back into their dimples and set further after flipping the rudder back to the original side and backriveting a little more.

Next, my rivet gun pressure was set too low (I thought this meant I was being careful). The gun wasn't getting the job done before it jumped around a little and cause a couple very minute dings. A lot of my other dings have been pretty small, and these are even smaller. I doubt you would notice if I didn't mention it, but I'm trying to capture my experiences here, so I offer it up as a lesson learned.

Finally, when they tell you to flip the rudder over to finish the half-set backriveted shop heads, I'm not sure how this is supposed to work. With the long backriveting plate, the rudder is being supported by all of the proud shop heads, so if you rivet the manufactured head side, you'll be adding a local bow to the trailing edge. I didn't buy this, so I stuck with the first side and got the shop heads pretty well flush. Once that was done, I finally flipped it over to make sure they were backriveted flush.

I have some pictures of the trailing edge at the end, but after I finished, I drilled out and reset the four rivets I had previously marked.
A nicely reset flush rivet. The skin got a little scuffed here. I hope this polishes out. (Although I am now thinking paint for the rudder.)

Here's me drilling out the lower nutplate mounting rivets. Notice the missing nutplate.
First, a #40 through the middle.


Then, use a #30 to finish drilling out.
AH! I broke a drill bit. At least I was wearing safety glasses.?

I must have been adding a little force of my own.


Okay, now I can install the nutplate.
Here it is clecoed from the outside.


I had read people say "the -7 rivets were too short here, I had to move up to a -8." The warning bells were going off when I originally set these; I was thinking, "these -7s fit just fine, I don't know what all the fuss was about."

Of course, I tried the -7 with the nutplates installed, and yes, they were too short. I had to move to a -8, too.
These are long rivets.


A very bad picture of the nutplate installed.
Nutplate installed.


Okay, back to the trailing edge. I really didn't get a great picture of how straight it was, but it is straight. There are a couple local areas where there is some slight back and forth, but it is within a 1/32" and it's over the course of 4 or 5 inches. You won't see it unless you scope down the edge, which I'm probably not going to let you do if you come near my plane. Just kidding.
Trailing edge picture.


All in all, an hour and a half today. 56 rivets on the trailing edge. 4 rivets drilled out elsewhere (but already counted in the final rivet count, so I won't recount those). I'll try to get a better picture of the trailing edge later and post it here. (The trailing edge picture at the beginning of this post is a good angle and focal length, I'll try that one again.)
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Post Title: Dimple Dies and Tungsten Bucking Bar
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Fri, 02 Apr 2010 00:27:09 +0000
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I finally came across a couple places that needed a #6 dimple die set, along with a #8 dimple die set.

I surfed over to the The Yard and looked around. I swore they also had a #10, but they didn't online tonight.

Anyway, they offer free shipping on orders over $100, so of course I had to buy something else.

How about a bucking bar? Sure.

Tungsten? SURE!

I've been wanting one for awhile, and I think it is going to improve my riveting quality and workmanship.

I'll add pictures when they show up.
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Post Title: Rolled Rudder Leading Edge
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Fri, 02 Apr 2010 03:00:07 +0000
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All I came out to the shop today for was to roll the leading edge and set the 25 measly little blind rivets. This should be simple, right?

WRONG.

This was by far my worst building night so far in the project (although any night building is better than a night not building). So frustrating. There was a point where I thought I had mangled the skins so badly that I was going to have to build a new rudder. Read on.

First thing, I've read to go ahead and drill all of the holes to #30 and deburr now, because if you wait until after rolling, you may enlarge the holes and/or have a very hard time deburring the holes you've matchdrilled.
Two hard to reach rivets bucked.?


Here they are from the right lower side of the rudder skins. (I haven't been using blue tape on the rudder as much and this is a mistake. I know it would have been a lot of blue tape, but it makes the skins look so much nicer. I will be using tape again after riveting to protect the skins.) I don't think the rudder is going to end up polished, but I just hate the way those scratches look.
Nice and flush.


For the tip rivets (there were four that were hard to reach), I used a thin steel plate as a bucking bar for three of them, but then only had about 3/32" clearance between the unset rivet and the shop head from the set rivet on the other side. I improvised by using a backriveting plate, the right rudder skin, then the already set shop head, then a screwdriver, then the unset rivet, then the left skin and finally a flush set. This worked out really well.
My setup for riveting the last (aft) rivets on the rudder top.


Here's another shot with a flashlight assisting the digital macro setting on the camera. The point of the picture is the screwdriver, but it looks like I am going to have to replace that upper rivet on the right.
This worked well, but YIKES, look at that rivet on the right...also, the lower shop head doesn't look big enough. I'll get out the rivet set gage and test it.


Then, I turned the rod end bearings into the rudder by hand (I haven't made the rod-end bearing tool yet), and with about 30 seconds of trouble, I figured out a great way to slip the AN3 bolts into the hinges of the vertical stabilizer with the rudder attached.
Sweet. This is an awesome step in the project. My first assembly. And it moves!


The bearings aren't adjusted yet, and there are no fiberglass tips, but I'm so excited. More pictures!
A vertical picture. So nice...


And at the end of the night, I looked down and had spent an hour on the project. Look at that, I'm at exactly 100 hours! Two big accomplishments in one night. (Also, ten rivets. Don't want to belittle them by being more excited about the hours.)

To do:

?Clean up a few rivets
?clean and re-prime some bucking bar scuffing of the ribs
?Mount the fiberglass tips
?Figure out how the internal rudder stop works.
?Clean up some trailing edge dings.
?Do a couple more once-overs to clean up any edge issues throughout the empannage.
?Move on to the elevators.

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Post Title: Riveted E-615PP Trim Reinforcement Plate
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Wed, 07 Apr 2010 02:22:08 +0000
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WUHOO, tool order arrived!
3 things in the order, $154.90. Ouch.


Also included was this AWESOME sticker.
Where should I put this?

Here?

Here?

Here?

On the airplane? no.


Finally, the air compressor won.
Decorated air compressor.


Look at that beautiful tungsten bucking bar.
Old and new.


Also, I got two more dimple die sets. #6 and #8, on the right.
Just for comparison. #40, #30, #6, #8. Still need a #10.


Alright, back to work. First up, using the #6 dimple dies on the E-616PP Trim Cover Plate.
Nicely dimpled. I don't think it matters that you take off the blue vinyl. Maybe that was a bad idea.

Here's the bottom side (top side when mounted on the bottom of the elevator on the airplane).
Peeling off the blue vinyl.


Then, edge finished and scuffed for priming. I'm going to wait to prime this until I can actually by the electric trim motor since you have to drill more holes. Just thinking ahead: can I countersink and use NAS rivets for the trim motor mounting brackets? Nope. These are pretty structural (hold the motor, and therefore the trim tab, in place.) I'm sure those directions will confirm the need to dimple. I'll need to dimple E-616PP and the brackets that are used to attach the trim motor.
Ready for priming, except for all of the extra holes I have to drill, deburr, dimple, and rivet.



Same deal on E-615PP.
Ready for priming.

On the fancy priming stand.


After shooting primer to one side of E-615PP, I decided to add 4 holes for each of my new dimple die halves.
4 holes drilled.

Tada.


7/32" seems to work well for holes in a home-made dimple die holder stand.
7/32" is a good size hole for these.


Then, I shot primer on the other side of E-615PP. While I waited for that side to dry, I edge finished E-616PP.
Look at that nice edge. I love the scotchbrite wheel.


Now that E-615PP is dry, let's do some riveting! I grabbed the K1100-06 nutplates (or platenuts as Van calls them) and the 14 required rivets. Remember from March 28th, I am using NAS1097 rivets here.

I am going to be using NAS1097 rivets here (smaller head than AN426 rivets) so I can countersink (instead of dimple) the holes here. That saves me from having to dimple the nutplate ears, which will save me a lot of hassle.
I finally found the rivet callouts.

Click to expand...

I thought that because I countersank (verb tense?) the reinforcement plate that the 3.5 would be way too long, but the -3 was definitely too short. I grabbed 14 NAS1097AD3-3.5 rivets.
-3.5 (length) should work here.

I put all of the nutplates in with a single cleco and a single rivet, taped into place before starting to squeeze them. I hindsight, I should have backriveted these. So dumb.
Half of them done.


Then I did the other half.
Nice and flush. There is one that is almost proud, but doesn't affect the cover plate, so I may not try to muck it up further by drilling it out. We'll see if I can sleep tonight.


Once I got those 14 set, I grabbed the An507-6R6 screws and got the cover plate screwed on.
Ready to screw down. see in the lower left where the shadow under E-616PP is a little bigger? The dimpling kind of warped the plate. I'll have to try to coax this flat again.


Instead of following the directions to start in on the stiffeners, I sorted through my lower workbench shelves and pulled out the parts for the right elevator skeleton. I just laid them on the (very dirty) workbench and grabbed this picture.
Right elevator skeleton, ready to rivet. Just kidding.


First up, prepare the two end ribs (edge finish, then flute).
Here they are (E-703 and E-704), sitting nice and flat with each other.


I can't remember why I took this picture. Maybe after I removed the blue vinyl?
right elevator spar.


Then, it's time to match-drill the two end ribs together.
The two end ribs clecoed together for match-drilling.


After that, they want you to cleco the two end ribs onto the rear spar. You can see some misalignment here.
See the spar flange hole and how it doesn't line up with the counterbalance rib?


I read on some other builders' sites that it was difficult to cleco the counterbalance skin on the rib assembly. I didn't have too much trouble, but it was definitely easier to work front to back.
Counterweight clecoed in.


Next (before going back to the counterweight for drilling), I clecoed on the inboard rib. These are matchrileld to #40, then dimpled and set with flush rivets on the front web of the spar. The reason? The elevator horn must sit flush on this surface. You'll see later.
E-709 Root rib clecoed on.

Now back to the counterweight. Van's wants you to matchdrill these to #12. I started with a #40 and worked my way up, blatantly ignoring the advice to use drill lubrication. Of course, I broke 3 bits before I subdued my own stubbornness and moved on to something else.
Broken bit, I need to get some Boelube.


I managed to get some locking needle-nose pliers around the bit and back it out slowly.


Anyway. I moved on to the skeleton.
Here's the skeleton clecoed together and match-drilled. You can see where the elevator horn will sit flush on the spar web necessitating the flush rivets between the spar and the root rib.


Then, I spent a little time inside on the stiffeners. I just rough cut them with snips to the general size.
These are for both elevators, some of these will be cut down further for the smaller required stiffeners between the trim spar and main spar on the left elevator.


2.0 hours today.
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Post Title: EAA 1426 Fly-in Drive-in
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Sat, 10 Apr 2010 17:00:52 +0000
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So I'm writing this almost a week later, but I'll try to capture my experience last Saturday.

I woke up Friday afternoon set on having some contact with airplanes, so with a quick search of the EAA calendar, I had a fly-in-drive-in to attend. One of my buddies who owns a C182 was busy and said he wouldn't make it, so it looked like I would be driving.
Here's 7am in NC looking around my garage corner. Not too bad, although the fence needs painting. Maybe next year.


A half an hour (and Chik-Fil-A biscuit) later, heading north on 77 toward Pilot Mountain.
Look closely at the vehicle in front of me. ****, a State Trooper. no speeding today.

Another shot of pilot mountain.


Once in mountains, there are a couple nice vistas looking back toward the south and southeast.
77 looking south on the way up the mountains.


Once I pulled into the airport (Twin County, HLX), I met a couple people standing on the ramp and up pulls a beige 182 with a 3-bladed prop. Wait a minute, my buddy Jon has a beige C182 with a 3-bladed prop.
That plane looks familiar.

I wonder who is going to get out.

It's Jon!

(Had to get a picture of him standing straight up.)


Anyway, while I'm a member at EAA 1114, their meeting isn't until next weekend, and the EAA 1426 chapter fly-in promised pancakes. After some talking with Jon, we stumbled across this piece of machinery.

I'm going to try to capture the jokes about it. I take credit for none of them.
UFO (Unidentified Frying Object.)

So the joke goes that there was a retired Air Force officer who, as part of chapter 1426's winter activity list, designed and constructed this beast to contend with some of the other pancake cookers out there.

Someone made a pretty funny joke about it being a disc-shaped metal object seen near the airport, and that it was a UFO (Unidentified Frying Object.) I actually spilled a little coffee out my nose at this.

Somebody then pointed out that it must be an advanced design project from the Air Force.

The the Air Force guy piped up and said...
"Nope, it's leaking oil. Must be from the Navy."


Much giggling ensued. No offense to the Navy, or any armed services branch.

Anyway, I got a couple action shots. The cooking surface is a 3/8" aluminum disc (not aviation grade, the health department won't approve that as a cooking surface because of some anti-corrosion additives or something). I was interested in that, but couldn't find any more details. Anyway, th disc spins about 1 RPM, which, with 4 burners (note the manifold in the lower part of the next picture) at 90° from eachother, yields <counting>...18...19...20 pancakes every 3 minutes.

Two times around on the first side, then flip and one more time around.
Action shot! (That's a nice spatula, too.)

Look at how perfectly they are cooked.?


Anyway, I had to get a picture in front of it. Here I am, for only the second time in the blog. Sorry I didn't comb my hair.
Who, other than me, would say, "Hey Jon, take a picture of me with the pancake cooker!"

On the way home.


That's all. Now back to work on the airplane!
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Post Title: Right Elevator Stiffeners and Priming
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Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:59:45 +0000
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Today was pretty boring. All I did was trim the aft end of right elevator's stiffeners and prime the two spar reinforcement plates.
Here's half of my right elevator stiffeners.


Of course, I finished deburring, edge finishing, and cleaning the two right elevator spar reinforcements. I even got the girlfriend involved. She took the parts inside and scrubbed them down with dawn. Now it really is "our" airplane.
Two spar reinforcements, primed on one side.


While that one side was drying, I finished up with the stiffener trimming. Here's a shot of my weapon of choice.
Stiffeners and snips.


After I finished my first 7 stiffeners, I laid them into the skin, just for kicks.
Stiffener work is boring, but it means that there is backriveting coming soon, and I love backriveting.


Drink of choice tonight (only during piddly stuff, never during "real" construction): Rum and Coke. Mmm. Rum.
Rum. Coke. Stiffeners. Sharpie. And a **** dirty workbench. (Those splotches are ski-wax drippings.)


Anyway, I think it was an hour tonight, including the 5 minutes of double duty with the girlfriend's help. I'm gonna get her to help more.
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Post Title: Right Elevator Stiffener Drilling and Dimpling
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Thu, 15 Apr 2010 02:10:48 +0000
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Another fairly boring night with right elevator stiffeners, but the end is near (end of right elevator stiffeners, not the whole airplane), so I'll keep plugging away.
My setup for drilling stiffeners. I used the cordless today so I wasn't making too much noise. I'm almost done with this side.


I matchdrilled every hole except for the last hole (closest to the trailing edge.) Some of these last holes are both pre-punched, and just need to be matchdrilled to final size, and some are missing the holes in the stiffeners. You have to use the skin to matchdrill the stiffener.
Down the right elevator.


I unclecoed most of the stiffeners and then re-clecoed the stiffeners (just at the ends) with the elevator off of the table so I can roll it over to drill.
Ready to flip over and matchdrill those last stiffener holes.


One picture of the last hole.
The hole at the end of the "3" is the one I need to matchdrill.


After that, I used a thick sharpie to trace the stiffeners to help with future devinyling. Then, I flipped the whole thing over to start on the other side. Same process, though.
About halfway done with this side.


Then, uncleco from the table to flip over and get the last hole.
Unclecoing from the last hole.


No big deal for you, but I marked all of the stiffeners correctly. The right elevator in the background is sitting upside-down (I just typed right-side-up, and had to change it. See, I'm still confused). Anyway, the ones on the table are on the top surface of the elevator, but the one in the foreground is marked the top ("Top, A"), but is actually the longest bottom stiffener.
This should be "BA" for "Bottom, A."


After finishing all of the stiffener drilling, I took them inside to deburr. After all of the deburring, I grabbed this shot of the placemat on the kitchen table. (Don't tell the girlfriend. I got it cleaned up.)
Aluminum shavings galore after deburring. This is kind of a stupid picture, but I already uploaded it, so I'm not going to hold back.


After deburring, I rubbed down the surface that needed to be dimpled, (not the perpendicular surface, and I definitely didn't do any edge-finishing).
Deburred and scuffed, ready for dimpling.