Before I get into all the airplane-building stuff tonight, I have to show you the storm that passed by yesterday. The girlfriend grabbed the camera and grabbed this shot.
This is looking south. Really pretty tail end of the storm, all pink and such. And the moon!
Okay, enough pretty stuff.
While waiting for a good time to rivet on the right wing’s top skins, I decided to move on to something else. I guess the aileron brackets will do. After looking at the plans for a few minutes, I started pulling out parts.
Those counterbores are where the bearings will be sandwiched in between two halves.
Mocked up with some #30 clecos, ready for matchdrilling.
Two on the left wing, two for the right.
After matchdrilling and edge finishing, I reassembled them and started figuring out where these things get countersunk.
One note here. Based on many other builders’ experiences, I’ll have to come back after fabricating these and rouding off the top forward corners. They apparently don’t fit very well, and without any access to the appropriate spots on the rear spar (okay, I’m just lazy), I’m going to wait to fit check them until later.
Ready for countersinking.
Having watched a few other builders mess this up, I broke out the sharpie and decided I was going to be darn sure of my countersinks before starting.
If you read closely, you can see that it says flush head on the... (crap, I can't read that closely here.) It's the outboard side, I promise.
Mirrored for the other side.
There is actually a page for the mirrored part, forgot to flip the page.
For the two inboard brackets, there are the same outboard countersinks, then two more on the inboard side. (Sharpie circled above.)
I retrieved my rivet container and pulled out my very first An426AD4 rivet.
It's way bigger.
A little countersinking, and…
Tada!!!
Then I pulled everything apart (I realize this description is a little terse…there is cheese and wine waiting for me in the next room), and got to prepping for primer.
After going inside to clean and dry, these are ready for primer.
While the primer is drying, I pulled out the hardware.
Man, this bag looks old. It's only from last summer.
A picture of paint drying.
Finally, I set some rivets. 7 in each bracket, to be more precise.
See the rightmost bracket? The aft edge of the piece isn’t quite flush, and Van’s is very specific that it must be. Also, one of those rivets didn’t really set quite right, so tomorrow, I’m going to go ahead and replace it.
All looking good except the right-most one.
2.0 hours. 7 rivets in each bracket, for a total of 28 rivets.
Andrew's RV-7 Build Log 