Finished drilling the HS

January 1, 2010

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Short, but productive day.

It was Jack’s birthday today (he turned 3), so I ran out to Chik-Fil-A to get him is once a year human food treat. A chicken biscuit. Of course, Ginger needed one too (“so she doesn’t feel left out”) and so on, which meant my girlfriend and I also got biscuits. Here are Jack and Ginger.

Jack and Ginger (Jack's on the right) on the beach last summer. Happy Birthday Jack. You're 3 now. Start acting like it.

Anyway, after the birthday festivities (a.k.a. Jack and Ginger inhaling their biscuits), I managed a couple hours on the project. Here, I clamped HS-404 in place after having first marked holes and drilled #40 pilot holes in the aft flange. The instructions have you mark and drill pilot holes in the HS-405, but why drill from aft to forward, hoping you don’t run into edge distance problems when you could drill from forward to aft? For the outboard holes, I did use the HS-405 for pilot holes. You’ll see.

HS-404, with two pilot holes marked and drilled prior to mock-up.

Here are the silver clecos after drilling from forward to aft with my 12″ bit.

Used the #40 pilot holes I previously drilled in HS-404 to drill through HS-702 and HS-405.

Then, I used the previously marked and pilot drilled holes in HS-405 to drill forward through the HS-702 (front spar) and HS-710/714 (reinforcement angles). The 12″ bit really came in handy here.

Then used the #40 pilot holes I made in HS-405 to drill through HS-702 and HS-710 (or HS 714 for the other side). Here, you can see the 12" bit really showing its stuff.

Then, I matchdrilled the rest of the HS-404, which had been clamped in place in the above pictures. After that, I finished match-drilling the rest of the skin for the right side. After you finish and pull the skin off, you can drill the remaining HS-702 holes using the HS-710 and HS-714 angles as guides. Here are the last six holes drilled after pulling off the skin.

Finished drilling HS-710 and HS-714 after removing the skin.

After the skins are pulled off, I’m ready to start prep for final assembly.

After match rilling both skins and finishing the HS-710/HS-714 to HS-702 holes, The skeletons lay ready to disassemble, deburr, dimple, edge finish, surface prep, and prime.

2.0 hours today. Not bad.
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More HS work

December 31, 2009

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First thing in the morning, I had to run some errands, one of which included a stop by Harbor Freight to exchange my Automatic Compressor Drain Kit that had a crack in it. While I was there, I used two coupons. One, for a free tape measure, the other for almost half off a 6″ digital caliper. Walked out the door with a new caliper, tape measure, and an exchanged drain kit for $10. Can’t beat that.

Free tape measure at Harbor Freight. Also a coupon for 1/2 off a $20 digital caliper.

I went ahead and scotchbrited all the HS ribs. I was sick of the aluminum dust on my hands during scotchbriting, so I took these inside and did them with warm water (only reason for warm was so my hands didn’t get cold) in the kitchen sink. Worked well with a lot less dust. (Also, I think showing pictures of my work with finished pieces looks a lot better than the original parts, which are all shiny and finger-printy after my grubby hands work with them.)

Surface prepped HS ribs.

Then, the directions have you cleco the left skeleton together.

It looks like an airplane! Kind of.

I did the right side too (mostly so I could take the next picture), then match-drilled all of the rib/spar attach points to #30, (except for 708/603), which they have you do later to a #21.

Both skeletons after match-drilling all of the rib to spar attach points.

Then you get to cleco on the skin (wuhoo!). I had trouble with HS-707 here. the very tip of the rib kind of caught on the  skin (vinyl); I had to really work to get it back into position and clecoed. you can see here I clecoed every hole on the HS-707.

Clecoed on the left HS-601 skin.

Then I inserted the HS-404 (front inboard) and HS-405 (rear inboard) ribs and clamp. Here, you can see the HS-405 clamped.

Inserted HS-404 and HS-405 for match drilling.

Then I match-drilled the HS-405 to the HS-601PP (skin). I didn’t do the top or bottom forward most hole, because I seem to be having edge distance troubles on the HS-405 and HS-702 spar. I checked everything and it seems to be right. I checked some other build sites to see if other people have run into this, no one mentioned it. Right as I was going to post a question on the VAF forums about this, a new thread popped up. Apparently this is a common problem, and the edge distance on HS-405 is not to be worried about. It’s a little confusing, though, given the prepunched nature of the parts.

I went ahead and match-drilled it. I’ll examine the edge distance a little more closely when I take apart the HS for prep. I repeated all the steps for the right side, then started in on match-drilling the skin to forward spar holes inboard of the 707. (Below, you are looking at the bottom of the stab, so the right HS is on the left in the picture. you can see the extra clecos from what I will call the “middle ribs” (708 and 707) inboard along the front spar. Those are not pre-punched on the spar, so you have to use the holes in the skin to match-drill.)

Then repeated for the right HS. Looks like an airplane!

11am to 6pm, with an hour for lunch. 6 hours today.

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Picked up empennage, inventoried

December 29, 2009

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Well, I’m officially a homebuilder.

After checking FedEx’s tracking website, I saw that they tried to deliver the boxes on Christmas Eve, then again on the 28th and today, the 29th. I arrived home yesterday from the Keys around 5pm, so while enroute, I called fedex to have hen hold the packages at the local facility.

When I got to FedEx, they found the smaller package, but insisted it was the only one. “Hmm, usually they ship them together. Guy said, “if there were two, there would be a ‘1 of 2’ on the label.”

“You sure? Van’s charged me for shipping both packages.” (Although, you may remember that the tracking number online indicated only one package.)

“Positive.”

Huh.

When I got home, I checked the fedex exception slip on the door and sure enough, the driver indicated there were two packages. I drove back out to the FedEx place and pointed this out.

“Oh yeah, we saw another (bigger) package with ‘high dollar aircraft parts” on it, is that yours?”

Grrr.

He continued. “You should have said something when you were here before.”

Grrr.

I can’t complain too much, they tried to get me my tail kit on Christmas eve, so thank you to FedEx. Also, I’ll give Van’s some credit for beating their estimate.

Anyway, I got them home. Because I was gone for the last week, we did Christmas tonight. (Girlfriend, Jack (black lab/Italian greyhound), and Ginger (German shephard/American staffordshire terrier) all exchanged gifts.)

I slapped a bow on each kit, and Jack gave me one, and Ginger gave me the other. Thanks, pups, for the gifts. (How did you guys wrap those boxes without any thumbs? “It was ruff,” Jack said. Ha. Dog joke.) I managed to get away with this because the girlfriend got a trip to a Central American country from Ginger, so the airplane was not a big deal.

Here are the two boxes on my workbench.

Boxes on the workbench.

Starting to unwrap everything. Not surprisingly, (from other builders sites), everyhing was well wrapped and packaged. Van’s delivers the tail kit in subkits, so you have to take out the subkits, unwrap those, then inventory.

Here are the first few subkits.

First few subkits

Here’s the stuff from the 1st subkit.

1st subkit unpacked

And the second subkit.

Second subkit

Here are the fiberglass tips (I can’t remember if this is the third subkit or not.)

Fiberglass empennage tips.

And all the paper from the small box alone…

Paper from just the small box.

Then my iphone died, so I kept unpacking and inventorying (verb?) until I could snap this picture of everything in the kit except the hardware.

Everything upacked, except hardware.

Here’s a picture of the hardware.

Here are the hardware bags.

And then all the paper from the whole kit. (I left the boxes out of the picture.)

That's a lot of paper.

Then I put everything away user my second workbench. Top shelf was horizontal parts on front, vertical parts on back. Middle shelf is elevator parts on front and rudder parts in back. Bottom shelf is skins. I left the hardware in bags for now, I need to stop by harbor freight tomorrow and pick up another storage bin.

Here’s my empty workbench, ready for the real start tomorrow. And here’s a picture of my second bench, with all the airplane parts in it.

Ready to go for tomorrow. Sorry about the weird angle.

I’m counting the inventory hours as build hours, because of the organization and learning part. Some people don’t count them, but I think it is an important part of the process. 1.5 hours.

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Posted by Andrew

Ordered Empennage

November 30, 2009

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Well, it’s official. Today at 2:08 pm EST, I emailed Barb my order form. I didn’t buy the electric trim yet, but I am planning on installing electric trim by the time I finish the kit. (Didn’t want to spend the $300 to have the trim motor sit for months on a shelf.)

Then I got the confirmation:

Andrew, I was able to print your form with no problem. Thanks much. We will process your order and ship as soon as we can.

Update on Dec 7th…

Andrew, although your order has been put to crating, it has not shipped yet. We normally ship with Fed Ex on a 3 day service, and you will get an email with the tracking once it leaves our door. Thanks for your order and have fun building once you do get you kit.

But then a couple hours later…

Andrew, I was told this afternoon that we are totally out of parts for the RV-7,8, and 9 kits. We should have some hopefully by next week and will ship
your order as soon as we can once the parts have come in from production.

I’m pretty upset that the lady on the phone told me they were in stock and it was a whole week (and an email inquiry) after my order was placed that I find this out. I think this means the kit will arrive sometime around the 19th… Grrrr…

Update on Dec 14th…

Anna from Van’s called. She said they are still working on catching up, and that she thinks my kit will be ready a week and a half from from today…which is actually a blessing. That puts it on the FedEx truck on the 23rd, which puts it on my doorstep a little after Christmas, which will line up nicely with some holiday time off from work so I can get started. Hopefully I’ll be able to put in some 8 hours days on the project early on.

I’m impressed that they called. Van’s did not impress me by ignoring me for a week. Besides, even if they had shipped the tail kit today, I wouldn’t have been able to start until after Christmas anyway.

I’ll update the later tool post when my tools come in. (Or after Christmas if my dog, Jack, decides that would be a good gift for me.) He has a hard time ordering things off the internet with no thumbs, so I helped him out.

Update Dec 22nd:

Hooray!

After a short stint in Wichita for a wedding (shudder, and yes, I am entitled to a shudder… I put in two years there as a young, single male) and the beginning of a christmas vacation in the keys, I got an email from Van’s for the first emp box (29 lbs) tracking number.
It should arrive just in time for the few days I have off while at home before returning to work. This ended up working out pretty well. I wonder where that second box is…

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