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The dumbest mistake I ever made...

M

MTBengel

Active Member
I think of myself as a pretty talented fabricator... I will admit to being a perfectionist and have never minded making the same part three times if that's what it took to get it perfect. This has honed my skills over the years and allowed me to take on projects of increasing difficulty and complexity without fear.

However, this darn RV7 is humbling me. I don't remember ever making so many stupid, avoidable, mistakes! I just punched a extra hole in a rib with a dimpling die! Dooohhh! Van is certainly making his money off me in spare parts.

If you're like me, you take solace by coming to this list and seeing we are not alone in our stupidity. So, in the spirit of support of those who will inevitability follow, I think it helpful and cathartic to confess the dumbest mistakes we ever made on our RVs... anyone willing to step up?
 
Your slip up is almost a rite of passage in RV construction. I think all of us did that at least once.
 
MTBengel said:
I just punched a extra hole in a rib with a dimpling die! Dooohhh!
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I admire anyone willing to take the time and effort to make their RV as light as possible! An extra lightening hole is definitely above and beyond in your quest for perfection!:D

Keep building!
 
I wish I could say that was the dumbest thing I've done but there was that bad rivet... by the time I was done fixing it, I ordered all new parts and built a completely new elevator.
 
Thats nothing, I installed all the rivets for the nut plates in the baggage compartment tunnel cover, and forgot to actually install the nut plates. The string of four letter words that followed after I realized I needed to drill out all those rivets and do it again would've made a merchant marine sailor cringe.
 
Sig600 said:
Thats nothing, I installed all the rivets for the nut plates in the baggage compartment tunnel cover, and forgot to actually install the nut plates. The string of four letter words that followed after I realized I needed to drill out all those rivets and do it again would've made a merchant marine sailor cringe.
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yep - did the same thing with half the nut-plate rivets for the left wing tip. Probably squeezed 40 rivets before I realized I forgot the nut plates. I was happy my children were not home! :)
 
dumbest mistake....so far

I had just finished rolling and riveting the leading edge of my rudder. It was then that I noticed I had put rivets in but not the K1000 nut plates into the forward spar. I'm still kicking myself in the behind over that one. Ever try disassembling a rudder? Just buy new skins.
 
dumbest mistake I ever made?

Ah! To paraphrase my IFR instructor, the biggest mistake I made is the NEXT mistake.

Of course I have done all the standard mistakes. I believe we all owe Van a big "Thank you" for making mistakes low cost in parts. Time is another issue! I did the entire three-D's to the Horizonal skin on the emp on my RV-9A (Drill, deburr and dimple) and then on the FIRST rivet, went skidding across 12" inches of skin with an out-of-control rivet gun. :eek:

ARGH!!!!

Cost:
==========
Skin: low
Time: medium
Pride: high

We just passed three years, and I still love spending Saturday's building an aluminum magic carpet. Building an RV is still cheaper than therapy.

Dkb
 
Yep been there done that!

I have this tray I was trying to fabricate for the Altitude encoder. Somehow it was always the wrong length. By the time it fitted Frankenstein?s monster thought it was his twin brother!.... Threw it away and started again.

Cheers

Jim
 
One big mistake was thinking "that part is stable sitting on the edge of the table for 5 seconds while I run and fetch something." I still have a crease in my HS to show for it. Lesson learned - if it looks unstable, it probably is.

greg
 
Well, I may have you beat

Ordered a new set of "small plans" for my 7a..the kind that go in the construction book (as mine were getting ratty)..which are also, in some cases, for the 9a..I built the aileron pushrods a few years back..checked the "small plans"..and believed I had built them too short..so I cut them up trying to save the ends..Could not believe I built them the wrong length..Well, I didn't!..I should have check the larger "real" plans..Looked at the 9a length instead of the 7a length..!and I discovered they were the correct length in the first place..so I ruined $110. worth of "good" parts! Cursing and whiskey did not seem to help. Check those plans closely...and trust yourself..!......By the way, I just finished my 7a TODAY...after 10 years of building..Now waiting on the FAA for the pink slip...
 
So cool to know I have fellow builder mistake ridden buddies!

This really is great as I thought I was just getting old and mistake ridden, nice to see I have some company in mistakes.

Ok mine goes thusly, after a long time I have begun building again and started with my RV 7 rudder. Well as I was dimpling, using an Avery dimple machine the skin lifted a bit of the pointed die..... just as I was coming down with the hammer to make a dimple....result an extra hole just off the required one. After much careful work I flattened it and made the correct hole. I am sure a little bit of bondo will cover the mistake and some paint..... Oh well...there is my BIG mistake, took about two hours for me to settle down to "fixing" the problem.:D
 
Thankfully it happens to everyone!!!

Like Mark, I tend to think of myself as a pretty accomplished crafsman. I learned to do sheetmetal work from Herb Tischler. He's the guy who was hand building the Messerschmitt ME-262 at Meachum (Ft. Worth) in the mid 90s. I have made my living for 20 years doing aircraft structural work and thought I could get through this -6 kit build blind folded. My biggest mistake so far is not having the flimsy frames supported when I drilled one of the side skins. Ended up scrapping the skin and ordering a new one ($280 mistake) from Vans. Just goes to show, no matter how much you think you know, that even the most seasoned builder WILL be humbled from time to time.
 
My biggest mistake

I was using flox in a paint bucket in the fuselage when I tried to step out as usual on the spar attach point and missed it. My foot went out below the spar attach and shifted my weight out the plane. I threw the bucket of epoxy all over Scott's hangar and fell out on the floor with my shins wrapped around the wheel pant brackets. The worst part was slapping the rudder (attached to the vertical) that was lying on the table and knocking the whole assembly on the floor with me on top. It hurt pretty bad but I knew shins and wrists heal but aluminum doesn't. I was worried about the rudder but all was well. The only dent in the plane was from this on the top of the rudder. I'm glad the video camera wasn't running!
 
My Turn

How about when installing the electric flap trim: modifying the flap control weldment by cutting of the old "mechanical" arm in readiness for the installation of the new arm for electric trim, then realising the flap control weldment was already an electric trim one. Do I get a prize ?
 
My stupidest mistake was drilling a 1/8 inch hole through a perfectly good thumb nail.
 
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No need to toss a part due to a dimpling error. Fiberglass it! Many off us, especially at the beginning before we learn how to use fiberglass, are overly paranoid about getting everything perfect. Fine if that is what you want, but at some point we need to fly. Making mistakes isn't dumb, as long as you are smart enough to realize you made a mistake and you don't waste time and money trying to fix problems that don't really need to be fixed.
 
Lemmingman said:
I had just finished rolling and riveting the leading edge of my rudder. It was then that I noticed I had put rivets in but not the K1000 nut plates into the forward spar. I'm still kicking myself in the behind over that one. Ever try disassembling a rudder? Just buy new skins.
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Hello my name is Bret, I am a multiple rudder builder.
 
now i feel better

Jekyll, Now I feel better, the whole in my fingernail was only 3/32, amazing how much that can bleed.
 
This one made me quit for the night...

Using an inspection mirror to check shop heads inside the wing along the main spar web. Noticed a bad shop head. Drilled out and set a new rivet 3 times before I realized I was drilling out the good rivet instead of the bad rivet above it...... 3 times..... Kept thinking I must have forgotten how to set a rivet properly because that shop head still looked bad....
Quit when you are tired.....
 
Better is the Enemy of Good Enough

Jeff R said:
No need to toss a part due to a dimpling error. Fiberglass it! Many off us, especially at the beginning before we learn how to use fiberglass, are overly paranoid about getting everything perfect. Fine if that is what you want, but at some point we need to fly. Making mistakes isn't dumb, as long as you are smart enough to realize you made a mistake and you don't waste time and money trying to fix problems that don't really need to be fixed.
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or "Dont over egg the custard".

Work out what is a sound and tidy level of workmanship and dont try to make things perfect. It inevitably winds up making the finished job worse as well as being scandalously time consuming.

I learned from a distorted firewall. It was bent like a potato crisp. I buggerised around for at least 5 hours trying to figger out what was wrong and getting all "Post Traumatic Shock" about this situation.

Eventually I drilled to top section off, bought a sheet of stainless and made over. It took me 20 minutes to fix. To this day I niether know nor care what went wrong.

HTH

Mark Bolton

http://rv-4builder.blogspot.com
 
Mistakes!! Where to Start??!!

Let's see, I too have dimpled an extra hole next to another one. This time I just flattened it out an dimpled the correct hole. I'll fill the other in with epoxy.

I've also had issues with drilling out 470AD rivets. To the point where I've enlarged the hole too much (not enough edge distance). I elected to reorder those parts.

I've also messed up the HS 404, 405, 702 drilling. To the point where 2 of the holes wouldn't line up. I reordered those parts as well I (Vans is making a killing from me in spare parts :eek: )

Out of all this, what have I learned recently? Not to be perfect. To err is to be human. If I can correct the error without ordering new parts than that is what I have been doing. For example, one of the holes attaching the HS skin to HS 702 was slightly enlarged to the point where it would not take a 3-3.5 rivet. So I drilled it to the next size (4-4). Now no more problem!

Hopefully I'll make no more mistakes during the rest of the build but somehow I doubt that :D

Chris
 
Tipi haven't lived until you use your knee to stabilize a part before drilling and then drill a nice hole through the part and into your kneecap. I learned real quick that I didn't want to do that again!!! I still have a nice knot on the kneecap to remind me of my mistake.
 
When you rivet on the z-brackets to the fuel tank rear baffle, make sure you get them pointed the right direction.

Ask me how I know this.
 
When you drill the HS rear spar and doubler straps for the BSPQ-5 rivet, be sure to use a #21 drill bit and not a #12. Those four parts happen to be the most expensive in the tail kit. :)
 
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