Well, my order came in from Van’s today. Here are the goods.
It's like Christmas, but in June.
First up, a W-408-1R, NOTCHED NOSE RIB. Turns out, I ruined the other one by not making sure it was all lined up prior to drilling. I have a good idea on how to make this one work out, so stay tuned.
Also included in this order, my flop tubes, and some snap bushings, which I needed to order due to all of the holes I drilled in the wing ribs. (Oh man, now I want a steak.)
Leading edge rib, flop tubes, and snap bushings.
Then, the proseal (black death!), fuel tank leak test kit, and 25′ of black corrugated tubing that should fit nicely in the holes I drilled in the ribs (see steaky link above).
Black tubing, proseal, and test kit.
Even though I REALLY WANTED to break out the proseal and start slathering it all over my workbench, airplane, hands, clothes, and face, I decided to wait until my popsicle sticks and syringes come in from amazon.
So tonight, I decided to work on the right inboard attach bracket.
After studying the plans, I grabbed the AA6…I’m not going to type out the part number. See the picture below.
Yup. That's it.
(Insert silence here where I tried for 10 minutes to figure out what R1 is.)
I’m really sorry to admit this, but I started scouring the internet. Googled “VAF R1 TANK ATTACH BRACKET” and “R1 NOTE DWG 16A VANS RV-7.”
To no avail.
Then, someone’s build site (can’t remember who), admitted that they spent 10 minutes and some google searches trying to find out what the R1 stood for before they realized that it wasn’t a note, it was RADIUS=1 inch.
Duh.
Okay, I’ve got some lines drawn.
Whose cute toes are those?
I think that is T-410 on the top of the picture. I used that to trace mirror images on the 2" side.
Then, I pulled a can of OFF from the shelf and used it to make a 1" radius circle. Then, connected the tangents after drawing a 1/2" line along each side of the bottom. (The drawing is half scale, and it was 1.4" on the drawing.)
After some sawing, I for some reason lost interest and broke out some of the snap bushings.
Two of the smaller size (SB375-4), and one of the bigger size (SB437-4).
Sweet. These will work perfectly.
Nice.
Umm, who took this redundant picture?
Okay, back to sawing.
Hmm. This turned out to be annoying with the jigsaw. Maybe I need a bandsaw.
Done.
Insert about 30 minutes of deburring on the scotchbrite wheel….
Deburred.
So, then I put it in the nose of the inboard rib, and admired how nicely it fit. (Actually, it still needs a little trimming around the edges.)
Looks good.
Okay, I didn’t do a good job of taking pictures here, but basically, I drew a line 1 and 1/16″ back from the tip of the rib, and then drew a line parallel to the front edge, but 2 diameters of the final rivet size (1/8″) away.
Here's where I got the 1 and 1/16" from.
Then, I marked and drilled 5 of the 6 rivet holes, along with the center hole, which is the pilot hole for the 9/16″ hole that the flop tube fitting will fit through.
confused?
Here's a better picture. 5 plus the pilot drilled, and I've laid in the AN nut to see where I can put the sixth (marked) without rivet head interference.
This is me trying to figure out what size hole I’ll need for the fitting.
0.563? What fraction gives me 0.563?
Obviously 8/16″ is 0.5 and 5/8″ is 0.625. Let’s try 9 divided by 16.
Wuhoo!
Apparently I don’t have a 9/16″ bit, but I did work my way up to 1/2″ and then lay in some AN470AD4-7 rivets so I could show you my good spacing.
How's it look?
Here's the other side.
1.5 hours. Still need a 9/16″ bit, but that won’t stop me from getting into the tank stiffeners, drain flange, and filler cap soon.
I’m actually looking forward to it. Maybe this week.
Andrew's RV-7 Build Log 