Skeletons

Today I primed an riveted the rudder stiffeners to the left and right rudder skins.

Stiffeners Being Riveted to the Rudder Skins

I finished riveting all the stiffeners to the left skin and when I was picking up the skin to switch it with the right skin, I realized I had reversed the smallest stiffener! AARRGGHH! Dang it! I had to drill out 11 rivets from R-915H. Ok, I'm pretty good at drilling rivets out now. So, I drilled them out, turned the piece around and riveted again! It runed out well. All rivets went in very well with none needing repair. Cool! I love to back rivet. If only it were possible to do it this way on the whole plane. But alas, it is not. Moving on.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Next is building the rudder skeleton. Start by clecoing the R-902 rudder spar and R-904 bottom rib together then enlarging the ⅛" hole in the bottom rib to ⅜". I used my step drill bit for this and made quick work of that task. Next I fabricated the R-917 shim per the plan drawing. Note here: just cut the shim to size and do not drill the holes yet. You don't have enough dimensional information anyway.

R-917 Shim Cut to 1⅛" x 3½" Per the Drawing

Next I bolted (using a ⅜" hinge bolt) the R-405D rudder horn on the rudder spar and match drilled the four holes through the upper edge of the rudder horn to #30.

Horn Bolted to Spar Ready for Match Drilling

Next I cleco'd the rudder horn to the bottom rib to check the fit. The radius of the top of the horn needs to be trimmed down a bit to fit with the rib flange. A few passes on the ScotchBrite wheel took care of that. Fits like a glove.

Taking a Little Off the Top!

Trim Just Enough to Allow a Tight Fit

I then cleco'd the bottom rib and the rudder horn to the rudder spar. Now is when you slide that R-917 shim into place. It goes between the rudder spar and the horn then once in place, you match drill it to #30 and cleco as you go. Now, cleco the reinforcement plates, R-606PP, R-607PP and R-608PP to the rudder spar. Note that the 606 plate attaches to the forward side of the spar while the 607 and 608 plates attach to the aft side.

R-606PP On the Forward Side of the Spar

R-607PP On the Aft Side of the Rudder Spar

R-608PP On the Aft Side of the Rudder Plate

Now comes fluting of the rudder tip rib and the counterbalance rib. They have you get this just right. All flanges need to be straight, both along the hole lines as well as being square to the rib web. Do this with your hand seemer if necessary. After that's done, cleco the counterbalance rib and the tip rib to the rudder spar. Match drill those holes to #30. Next, cleco the counterbalance skin to this whole assembly. It's a little tough here. The holes seem not to line up as well as I'd like. I will remove then check the straightness of the ribs again.

Tip & CB Ribs Cleco'd to the Rudder Spar
Without the CB Skin Attached

I'll hold off match drilling #40 holes to make sure I have all ribs straight and in better alignment. Stopping here for the evening. Take Care and Thanks For Reading!

HOBBS Meter - 71.7 hrs

Wings, Rudder & Birthday!

I spent the entire day Saturday (7/14) inventorying the wing kit. I didn't pay attention to time as it doesn't get added to the build time. I've read where some builders are a little concerned or intimidated by the amount of time spent doing inventory on the wing kit. Don't be. There are a huge amount of parts on this plane and you need to make sure that you have all the parts there. You don't just want to assume they are, then to realize you're short something later when it's crucial. Again, you have 30 days to check and verify and if parts are missing, Van's will gladly get them to you. As it turned out, I have 3 ribs back ordered which will be shipped later. I think as I build, I won't know they're missing so I can build on without waiting on parts. I also found that I'm short a few things in the hardware count. I know Van's is good about giving you extras on the larger count items but that doesn't make up for the shorts that occasionally happen. I still need to call them to report the shortages and get them shipped. It kind of slipped my mind until now. I'll give them a call tomorrow (7/20). There is a huge amount of paper when unwrapping all the parts. I had a mountain of paper going. When all was said and done, I put most of the parts back in their crates until I'm ready to start building. I don't have a lot or storage space for them right now. I still need to purge some things in the garage to create more storage space. I put all the hardware away in a storage organizer until they're called on. I would estimate that I spent around 8 hours on the inventory, but I took my time, making sure I had everything and I counted every last nut, bolt and washer. No, I did NOT count the rivets. Don't be silly!

First Crate Opened - Sea of Paper

Instructions & 6 Pages of Inventory!

Do As They Say - You'll Kick Yourself If You Don't

Monday, July 16 - Happy Birthday! Yep, today was my birthday. Just another day on the calendar, really. I went to work like normal and later had a nice dinner with wifey (I had the surf 'n' turf) at Claim Jumper. I love that place. It was a nice evening.

I didn't really do much tonight. Basically I spent time just figuring out the correct way to mark the rudder stiffeners so as not to set myself up for needing to order additional parts. I marked all my measurements on the blue film.

All Parts Marked, Ready for Trimming

After all the marking, I proceeded to do some trimming and came to the realization that I should have just stripped all the film off the parts THEN mark them. The reason for this is that when it comes to putting them on a bench sander to get them sanded to the marks you made, the blue film tends to either melt a bit, distorting the lines you made, or the film lifts from the metal and you can't really see where the marks are in conjunction with the metal. Tonight I cut half of them, cleaned and trimmed them. Now I'll pull the film on those and remark the parts R-915A-H right, then I'll take the left set of R-915A-H and remove the film then remark to make things easier.

HOBBS Meter - 60.8 hrs

Tuesday, July 17 - I finished marking, cutting, trimming, cleaning and breaking the edges for all the R-915A-H left and right stiffeners and rounding all the corners.

Ready for Dimpling & Priming

I didn't remove the film as I previously said I'd do for the trimming. Instead, I muddled through with the film on and things turned out well. I just didn't want to remove film and remark the remaining stiffeners. All parts look very good. After all the parts were sanded to the correct shapes, I then removed the blue film to prepare for clecoing and match drilling. I started clecoing them all to a board on the left skin. I got R-915A-D partly drilled and cleco'd.

R-915A-D Left Clecoed Ready for Match Drilling

You are to use a board or table that you don't mind drilling into (wood) then cleco the parts to the wood. The cleco will hold in the wood perfectly. This will keep the piece from elevating up from the tabel and allow you to match drill everthing cleanly. I stopped here for the evening for noise abatement. I'll pick up tomorrow to complete this task.

HOBBS Meter - 62.6 hrs

Wednesday, July 18 - I match drilled all the stiffeners to the skins, took the blue film from the outside of the left skin around the rivet holes on the outboard side using a soldering iron and a yard stick. I deburred all the holes in the stiffeners as well as the skin.

Deburring Stiffeners and Rudder Skin

I'm stopping here and will remove the film and debur the right skin tomorrow.

HOBBS Meter - 64.6 hrs

Thursday, July 19 - I finished match drilling all the stiffeners to the skins, removed the rivet hole film from the right skin and used a ScotchBrite pad to scuff all parts where priming will be applied.

Film Removal - Easy, Peasy, Lemon Squeezy!

All Rudder Skins & Stiffeners Ready for Priming

Not much tonight but some tedius work taking a bit of time. I'll start priming tomorrow then riveting the parts after they have dried. I need to go by Aircraft Spruce to get some ProSeal or similar for applying to the stiffeners where they will come in very close proximity with one another as the rudder skins are brought together. I've not read this in the plans yet but have seen it on other builder sites and want to be prepared. There is a location about 90 minutes from me. I could order the stuff but I need it pretty soon and not sure if there are HazMat charges on that stuff. It'll be a nice drive anyway. Take Care and Thanks For Reading!

HOBBS Meter - 66.8 hrs

VS Complete!

Happy Birthday goes out to my wife who turned the Big Five Zero today! 50! It'll be my turn next year.

Today I finished riveting the VS ribs to the forward spar. I had stopped yesterday because I needed to drill out a couple rivets that I missed the head on with the rivet gun. I accomplished that with no issues. After completing all the riveting of the ribs, I took the forward spar assembly and cleco'd it to the VS skin. Next was riveting the skin to the VS-702 forward spar from the center to the tip then from the center to the root then back from the center along the VS-707 rib. Next, I cleco'd the rear spar to the skin then riveted it to the skin then riveted it along with the end ribs. When all is done, 3 blind rivets need to be pulled for the VS-707 rear spar attachement

Vertical Stabilizer - Complete!

Vertical Stab Along with Horizontal Stab

Tomorrow, before I start the rudder (which will be fun, I think), I will inventory the wing delivery. That ought to take most of the day. Take Care and Thanks For Reading!

HOBBS Meter - 59.3 hrs

Vertical Stabilizer Started!

I started assembling the veritcal stabilizer (VS) today. I got everything fastened together. I started with clecoing the VS-808 spar doubler to the VS-803 rear spar then added on the VS-410PP, -411PP and -412 PP hinge brackets. I then drilled the missing holes in the upper VS-410PP bracket per the plans. I prepared the ribs, VS-704, -705, -706 & -707 by fluting, edge finishing and straightening them out. Next I cleco'd the ribs to the front and rear spars then match-drilled the rear spar doubler to a #30 with the rear spar. After that, I match-drilled all rib to spar attach holes. Next came clecoing on the skin to the VS skeleton assembly, then match-drilling all skin holes except where the fiberglass caps go. I disassembled, deburred and edge cleaned. Next is to clean, scuff, clean, prime then reassemble.

I'm stoping at this point just before priming. I want to go and research lighting on the VS/rudder to see how I need to run cabling through the assembly. There is a light location on a rudder caps so I want to make sure when I run the cabling, I have everything drilled ahead of time, before priming and assembling. I don't have any pictures tonight. This is a pretty straightforward assembly. I will probably snap a few after priming and while assembling. I'll let you know how it goes and what I decided later about lighting. No VS-mounted cameras here like some folks are adding. I'll do a dash or wing cam If I really want video.

That's it for now my peeps. Take Care and Thanks for Reading!

HOBBS Meter - 51.1 hrs