March 31st, 2013

Had a lot going on early in the week so didn't get much done at all this week.

Once I finished riveting the forward section, I wanted to get everything at a height where it would be easy to work on.  I tried sawhorses with rollers but it was too high.  I spend the early part of the week coming up with a better solution.  Ended up re-using the Harbor Freight moving dollies I'd already been using but made some sawed off sawhorses to get the height down.  I tied them in to the wood wing spar stubs I made when working on the F904 bulkhead and screwed it all together with deck screws.  Works great.

From Fuselage

The next night I made a rolling stand for the tail that would hold the fuse dead level, roll easily, provide good support, etc.  I just built it on the fly from available scraps.  Not pretty, but it works.

From Fuselage

I was off Friday so I went flying (beautiful day - dead smooth - shot some approaches since I haven't done any in a while - LOC 4 @ SFQ and the GPS 5 @ CPK).

Now that I had the fuselage stands the way I wanted and really solid, it was time to get down to business.

I still had some riveting to do with the aft skins below the longeron line, so I knocked that out first.

The next step is to drill the aft deck and rivet it. Once that's done, the fuse is rigid.  Van says take your time, get the fuse perfectly square fore and aft, then drill it.

The floor wasn't level, so it took a while.  Here's the forward section at the longeron bend finally level.

From Fuselage

Next the back deck gets levelled to match the forward fuse.

From Fuselage

Once that is done, triple (quadruple?) check it, clamp the back deck firmly in place, check it a couple of more times to make sure nothing moved, then start drilling the back deck to the longerons.

From Fuselage

From Fuselage

Before I can rivet the back deck in place, I still have some leftover housekeeping to do.  There is a spacer on the F710 bulkhead angle, and another spacer/elevator stop on the F711 bulkhead.  I also had a couple of pieces to prime.  I'll use the rattle can self etching primer for now, then hit it with some of the good stuff when I paint next time.

F710 spacer in place.

From Fuselage

The F711E takes a bit more fabricating.  It's made from a piece of .125 x 1 1/2" sheet.

From Fuselage

Once it was cut to shape and finished, I match drilled it to the F711 angle through the aft deck.

From Fuselage

From Fuselage

March 24th, 2013

I don't know how I missed it, but I had the bottom skin (F-972) outside the F970 side skins.

 I never caught it when the fuse was upside down and although it crossed my mind that it was odd that Van would do it that way the light never went off. Don't really have a shot of it, but once the fuse was rolled it was very obvious. I was getting ready to rivet it down when I looked at it again and how the skins would end up laying and I really started thinking about it. Did a bunch of googling pictures and builders logs and never really could find anything definitive, although looking hard at the plans where the skins are depicted it was obvious the bottom skin was supposed to be under the side skins.

 At this point I was feeling sick to my stomach at missing such an obvious detail. The floor stiffeners, both 904 bulkhead rows and the firewall angle riveted. To remove that would be daunting - drilling out well over 100 rivets. I knew a detail like that would forever bug me though. Even if no one else noticed (right....) I would know.

 Since Van's is 3 hours later I gave them a call and talked to Gus. He pointed out from a structural point of view it was fine (I knew that, but it was nice to hear) and even mentioned he'd seen several, especially 6's done that way. The next comment was better though. He said he'd never tried it, but felt that by removing just a few of the angle and bulkhead rivets that it should be possible to flex the bottom skin enough to slide it under the top skin.

 On that encouraging note I went back out and looked it over and decided he was right. I slept on it to make sure I didn't go at it too amped up - I wanted to do a careful and accurate job. Drilled the rivets out (4 forward, 5 on each row aft), lubed up the skin and a whippy putty knife with boelube, and in less than a minute I was able to slide the skin under - no wrinkles, kinks or anything at all to notice. Much better. I was a happy camper.

Once I did that, I spent the rest of the evenings riveting everything back up.  Becca helped me rivet the bulk of them, then I worked through the bottom and remaining aux longerons.

Next step Van's calls for is to roll it upright, level the fuse, then rivet the aft deck on (which according to Dennis, locks the whole fuse rigid).

Saturday 3/24 was the FKN pancake breakfast.  I think everyone decided it was a good day to fly.  It was the best turnout we'd had since last summer.

From FKN Pancake Breakfast Photos

Looked like a fly in out on the ramp.  Not sure how many planes - couple of dozen at least.  We had folks from Edenton, Elisabeth City, SFQ, Farmville, Dinwiddie, and all points in between.

From FKN Pancake Breakfast Photos

The customers kept us busy, which was great.  We even made some 4" pancakes in honor of Connie. :)

From FKN Pancake Breakfast Photos

I had some housekeeping to do still - I messed up the F710 angle, ordered some more, but never cut it to length, and installed it.  I did that Saturday.

March 17th, 2013

*Finally* got to start riveting the lower fuselage this week.  Getting the lower fuse riveted is a bit of a milestone because at that point it gets flipped right side up for the first time and you can actually sit in it and make airplane noises :).

Becca helped me a *ton* on riveting.  There are many places on the fuse that require two people, and nearly all go much quicker with help.  She's become not only a good bucker but knows how to read the plans, find the correct rivet callouts and notes, and does a lot of clecoing.

Just a note - the fuselage is sitting upside down at this point, so the pictures may look a bit funny.  After nearly a month of working on this stuff upside down, it's starting to make sense, but it's very confusing to try to orient which side is right and left and what is up and down when it's like this.  You get a lot of mental vertigo.

The first thing we did was rivet the 904 bulkheads to the side skins.

From Fuselage

Here's an inside view of the same area. There are a couple of small splice plates that bridge the gap between the F904 bulkhead (gold anodized parts) and the upper longeron (the longeron is a continuous [nearly 15 feet long] piece of aluminum angle that goes from the tail clear to the firewall along the shoulder of the aircraft).  The longeron is the lowermost piece of angle in this picture.

From Fuselage

Once we got that knocked out, we moved into the forward section and did most of the AN426-3 rivets (F719 stiffener, F902 bulkhead) on both the left and right sides.  The gold anodized structure to the right is the main spar carrythrough bulkhead for the wing spars.  Far left you can just barely see the firewall (which is stainless steel).  The naca vent in the lower left is for cabin fresh air (there is a nozzle/hose/regulator that will attach to it much later in the build).

From Fuselage

After we finished that we did some of the skin to longeron line between the forward and aft canopy skins.

 I did quite a bit of noodling during this process. It's easy to get on a roll with the rivets and put in a bunch of rivets that should not be riveted yet because other skins will be attaching to that area at a later date. The plans are helpful, but there is a lot of information to absorb and you really need to pay attention to what you are doing.

 Becca and I got rolling on the longerons and drove about 3 or 4 rivets I'll have to rivet out later because they need to be open to attach the forward upper skins.

 Once we'd finished that up, we started on the left rear. The "think about it" factor went way up because there are so many rivets in this area. We did end up having to drill a few out because we put some in spots that were end rivets for the baggage rib and bulkhead.

This is the junction where the side F970 skin (lower right skin) is curved to meet the center section with the baggage ribs (upper skin in photo) and the tail cone (lower left skin in photo) .  You're probably looking at about 90 minutes of riveting work right here.  There are over 100 rivets in this area, and it's very tight underneath.  I was very happy how this came out.  Becca did a great job.

The big hole is where the left side step will attach to the skins/ribs.

From Fuselage

This is the same area from inside.  There are 4 or 5 different sizes of rivets required depending on skin thickness, and a lot of working in tight spots to get the rivets set correctly.  We only had 1 or 2 we had to drill out and re-do, which may be a record.

We're looking up at what will eventually be the baggage compartment floor.  The vertical elements in the upper part of the photo are baggage compartment ribs - they will be covered with skins later.  The bulkhead and structure attached to it is where the elevator bellcrank and pushrods will attach.

From Fuselage

From Fuselage

Here's a view of the whole area after we knocked off one evening.  Starting to come together.

From Fuselage

Saturday Becca helped me again and we nearly finished the lower fuselage. Probably have about 100 rivets left before we can flip the canoe over and sit in it.

From Fuselage

Sunday evening after Dad's birthday (great dinner Karen!) I had some time to see if I could get the fuse finished enough to roll over. Becca was doing homework, so I had to get creative trying to buck the rivets on either side of the spar. Put some 30lb dumbbells on top of the back riveting plate and it worked like a champ.

From Fuselage

Once I got done with that I did more or less the same thing on the forward skin where it meets the back of the firewall flange. At that point I was ready to roll the canoe. Big moment. Finally get to see this thing right side up.

From Fuselage

I did the roll in stages. At one point it ended up in a shallow climb attitude (or a tail dragger).

From Fuselage

And here is the required picture of the future RV grin when I sat in it and made airplane noises.

From Fuselage

I also tossed in the rudder pedals to get a feel for the leg room.  There is ton.  The pedals are one hole from the furthest forward position, and may need to come back another notch.  Won't know for sure until I get the seat backs in and some cushions.  At any rate, it is very roomy.  Nice and wide at the shoulders as well.

From Fuselage

March 10th, 2013

There aren't a lot of good pictures or any exciting developments this week.  Mostly all I did was continue to take the fuselage forward section apart piece by piece (some larger than others obviously) and to dimple/deburr/countersink/prime/prep as necessary.

Also I went through the plans several times to make sure I wasn't missing something important.  Once everything is riveted together it will be difficult to drill holes for wiring or fuel/vent lines or install nutplates in certain locations.  One builder log I ran into suggested drilling the forward bolt holes for the gear weldments - an idea I adopted since there is absolutely no way to drill them easily otherwise - basically you'd be drilling "blind" due to the location of the 902 forward bulkhead.

What I did was install the gear weldments using some undersize bolts I made for attaching the wing spars.

From Fuselage

Once the weldment is in place (leaving out the 902 bulkhead), you then back drill through the gear web, longeron and bottom skin, then countersink it from the outside (special countersunk head bolts are used for the forward attach point)

From Fuselage

Another thing I did this week (can't believe it took me this long to think of it) was to organize the plans a bit better.  For the empennage and wings there were only 8 or 9 sheets to flip through.  The fuselage has several dozen and trying to find the one you want when you need it can be a big time waster.

I finally just created a plans index using post it notes numbered and taped to each page then created a master index sheet and put it on my plan stand, with the numbers aligned with the tabs.  *Huge* time saver.  Later I made a better index - this hand written one is just to get the spacing right.

From Fuselage

One other tool that I use a lot that folks don't always seem to know about is a mysteriously drilled 1/8" plate that Van's gives you.  It's a bolt length and size gauge.  Thought I'd throw in a pic in case someone doesn't know what it is.  I primed mine when testing primers, then just numbered everything to make it easier to read.  I use it a lot to determine the correct size and length bolt.

From Fuselage

Here's a small stack of the parts after deburring/countersinking/scuffing and just prior to priming.

From Fuselage

One of the other chores prior to dimpling is to remove the protective vinyl from the skins.  I leave it on as long as possible to protect the skin, but it has to come off prior to dimpling or the dimple depth won't be correct.  The technique is to melt the plastic with a soldering iron or similar (I have a cheap woodburning tool) and just remove a strip over the rivet line.  The inside gets removed so you can prime.

Here I'm peeling up the strips of plastic over the rows where rivets go after I'm done melting the plastic.

From Fuselage

Dimpling one of the side skins.  You can tell from the dullness it's been scuffed up so it will take the primer when I prime it later.  I was waiting for a warmer day at this point cause the highs had barely been out of the 30's.  Bit too cool for priming with an epoxy primer.

From Fuselage

March 2nd, 2013

This week was just finishing up a whole bunch of fussy details before beginning to rivet the forward/center/tail sections together.  There is a ton of dimpling, deburring, countersinking, etc., plus some things that are on the plans that aren't mentioned in the instructions (holes for cables, brake lines, various things).

Mostly I've been staring at the plane, the plans, visualizing (upside down is still very confusing to me) and just trying to make sure I don't forget something important that will be a lot harder to do once this stuff all gets riveted together.

One exciting (to me anyway) part is that when the sections are all riveted together, I will finally be at the point where I can sit in it (or nearly so - the seats won't be done yet).  It's a rite of passage I think.

I'll add some pictures later, though truthfully there aren't many.  The forward section has been sitting there with very little visible change - the progress is all drilling, fitting, fabricating, etc.