Right Tank Stiffener Prep

May 30, 2011

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So, among other horrible things that happened to me today (leaky toilet, Sopranos DVD that kept skipping, ground turkey burgers, which were delicious, except it was actually chicken), and dogs that are freaking out at the neighborhood fireworks, I managed to drop my ONLY set of cleco pliers behind my workbenches.

“But Andrew, you have both your workbenches on wheels,” you say?

Yes, except I still have the spar box, and it’s lengthwise under both workbenches, so I really can’t move either.

After a few minutes of maneuvering, I gathered up a few things I found under the workbenches.

I was wondering where my first-aid kit went.

Anyway, I spent about 30 minutes at the scotchbrite wheel edge-finishing my stiffeners.

After that, I got them clecoed into the skins (yes, I know I’m not doing them the same way as the elevators, I don’t think I need to drill them into wood this time).

I labeled them before continuing so I could get them back to the same spot when ready for final assembly.

Here, you can see 6A (aft) and 6F (forward).

5A anf 5F.

1A and 1F. I only show these because Van's cautions everyone to have enough room to the left of these stiffeners for water (contamination) to flow to the drain to the lower left. I think I've got plenty of room.

Then, I got to drilling. I went a little different route and drilled from the outside-in.

Lot's of clecos.

After drilling, I spent the last 30 minutes of my work session tonight deburring the holes, then scuffing just the bottom side (becuase that’s where the pro-seal will go), and finally dimpling the holes in the stiffeners using my tank dimple dies from Avery.

1st one done.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

All 12 complete.

All that’s left before actually breaking out the pro-seal is:

1) Cleaning these stiffeners up (along with the drain flange and filler cap)

2) Deburring, scuffing, dimpling, and cleaning the skin.

At that point, I can rivet the stiffeners, drain, and cap in. Then I’ll start into the ribs, but I’ll need to do a whole whole bunch of finishing on the ribs, too.

1.5 glorious hours of edge-finishing, drilling, deburirng, and dimpling.

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Drilled Right Tank Drain and Cap

May 28, 2011

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Well, admist going to work, running some errands, and doing a MILLION things in the yard, I managed to do two really fun things today.

First, I drilled the VA-112 (Drain Flange) to the lower inboard part of the right tank, and also drilled my fancy new deluxe fuel caps to the upper outboard part of the tank.

The actual quick drain will screw into the drain flange, but for now, I’m just using a rod end bearing lightly threaded in the flange to make sure it’s centered in the drain hole already in the skin.

The drain flange is pre drilled and pre countersunk, so I’ll use that to matchdrill holes in the skin.

The drain flange and quick drain. I don't need the quick drain, so it went back in the storage bin.

VA-112 and CAV-110.

You can just barely see the tip of a rod end bearing being useful to me here.

Once I had two clecos in, I removed the rod end bearing.

All six holes drilled.

Next, I pulled out my deluxe fuel caps. (This is where you go “oooooooh, ahhhhh.”)

Van's even underlined the name to signify how AWESOME they are.

I had to pull off the outboard right tank rib for good clamping access. Looks like I already made a vinyl-removal circle.

I love it when I've already done stuff.

For the cap, the skin is already drilled, so you have to align the cap, then clamp, and use the holes in the skin to matchdrill the cap.

After a good 10 minutes of clamping, checking, reclamping, girlfriend helping to hold, clamping, checking, rechecking, I finally got an alignment I (WE!!!) was (were) happy with.

That's about as good as I'll ever get it.

1 hole drilled. Can't breathe yet.

I was drilling really well today. See this curly-cue? That’s some good speed/pressure during drilling.

That's some good drilling right there.

Finally, I got all...(counting)...10 holes drilled.

A closeup of the alignment (looks like I have some aluminum shavings to clean up).

So, wouldn't it be funny if I hadn't edited this picture, you could see my key number on the lock, you made a copy of the key, and then stole all my Avgas? That wouldn't be funny, so I made sure to edit the picture.

I'm very happy with how this turned out.

It was only 30 minutes worth of work, but having the deluxe fuel caps in there made it look really good.

Possibly more tonight.

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Right Tank Stiffeners, Z-Brackets, and Countersinking

May 27, 2011

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First thing, I have to give some mad props to Van’s.

If you remember from yesterday, I put in a web order with Van’s for some stuff. At the top of my list was that leading edge rib I messed up a few posts ago, and I FORGOT TO ORDER THE RIB!!!

Anyway, here’s how a short interaction with Van’s (e-mail):

Me: Good morning, Barb…[snip]…Is there any way you can add an item to my order? I need one of the following, copied from “the list”: W-408-1R, NOTCHED NOSE RIB 032, $23.80. If not, I understand…it was my error. But if so, thank you so much!

Within an hour (and definitely before normal business hours in OR):

Barb: Andrew, I have forwarded this on to our parts department who will download
the web orders this morning and get it added to your order.  Barb

Then, after about another hour:

Dear Andrew,

The part was added to your order as you requested.  I just caught it
prior to being shipped this morning.

Pam
Van’s order dept.

Oh man, Van’s is awesome. Also, I figured out from the charge that shipping (UPS ground) and handling from Van’s was about $15. Not bad.

Anyway, being a Friday, I was looking for something relatively painless to do tonight. I pulled out the T-711 bundle and started in on the stiffeners.

Here's the bundle.

I ended up getting all of the stiffeners ready, for both tanks. I’ll put the ones for the left tank away until I’m ready to do that tank.

Below you can see 3 of the four sizes of stiffeners. The fourth size is pretty small, and I left them out of the picture.

Three sets of long, one set of kinda long, one set of kinda short.

Lastly, I took off all of the vinyl. If I were smarter, I would have pulled the vinyl off before cutting them. It would have been a lot easier.

Pile-o'-vinyl.

It was a little late to fire up the scotchbrite wheel, so I pulled out the right z-brackets and clecoed them to the spar. I spent a good five minutes staring at the plans to make sure I had them in the right orientation.

I'm doing this because I never matchdrilled the rear flanges of the interior ribs. The z-brackets and baffle are full-size holes, so I just need to run the drill through them with the flanges in place.

Drilling some holes.

Moved the clecos, drilled the other three.

Then, since I wasn’t too tired yet, I broke out the microstop countersink and started countersinking the skin-to-baffle holes. You do this so the baffle is easy to slide in place with the all pro-seal flying around. If it were dimpled, it would be harder.

Countersinking a skin this thin definitely leaves a knife-edge, but that’s what Van’s calls for here.

I’m planning on using the thicker tank dimple dies everywhere else, which should leave a little extra room for proseal underneath the rivet head, but I couldn’t bring myself to deepen these countersinks at all. We’ll see if it works out.

Looks good to me.

Much countersinking ensued...

A closeup, for those of you who are interested.

Anyway, it as a nice night in the garage. 1 hour, and getting closer to the black death.

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Posted by Andrew

Matchdrilled Right Tank Ribs and Baffle

May 26, 2011

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Not many pictures tonight, but I did get the tank matchdrilled.

But first, I got some things ordered from Van’s today in preparation for the tank sealing process:

  • 60 x BUSHING SB375-4 Snap Bushings, 3/8 (1/4)
  • 1 x DUCT NT 5/8-25 Nylon Conduit
  • 30 x BUSHING SB437-4 Snap Bushings 7/16 (1/4)
  • 2 x IF-4/6 RV-4/6/6A/7/7A/8/8A Wing tank flop tube
  • 1 x MC-236-B2 Tank sealant with accelerator QUART KIT
  • 1 x FUEL TANK TEST KIT Fuel Tank Test Kit

Of course, once I placed the order, I remembered that I buggered up the inboardmost rib of the right leading edge and needed a new one. I need to remember to order that one, and BEG Van’s to send it in the same shipment.

I decided to go with 2 flop tubes. (Flop tubes allow the fuel pickups to flop around in the tank, and therefore sustained inverted flight.)

One school of thought is that if you have two flop tubes and they get stiff, you could increase your unusable fuel (they don’t flop good no more) in either the upright or inverted attitudes. People therefore put one flop tube in and one rigid pickup. This means you have to switch tanks to your “aerobatic” tank before doing negative-g aerobatics. (How often will I do sustained inverted flight? Probably not very much.)

Anyway, I weighed the pros and cons, and came to the conclusion that the aesthetics of not having a single tank for aerobatics, and therefore a checklist item or a special placard, outweighed the possibility that after 10 years, my tube wouldn’t flop as floppily as it did when it was young.

Every couple years, I’ll open up the tanks and verify adequate flopitude. They are only $38, so it’s probably worth replacing them every 5 years anyway.

So, now that I’ve settled on duel flopicity, let’s get back to building.

I decided while matchdirlling, it would be easiest for me to do it while it was on the spar, so up on the spar the tank went.

(Be careful though, Van’s notes to matchdrill off the spar to avoid damaging the spar. This is really only a concern with the baffle holes (about the 10 most inboard ones). Take the tank back off the spar do matchdrill those.)

No action shots today, but much cleco-moving.

Back off the spar for baffle drilling.

Next up is fuel tank stiffeners, then a lot of prep before assembly of the fuel tanks.

1 hour.

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Prepped and Clecoed Right Tank Ribs to Tank Skin

May 25, 2011

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Well, tonight was fairly interesting. I pulled the right tank skin off of the spar (where I had been storing it using a few screws) and set it in the cradle.

Then, I fished out the right tank ribs from under my workbench and started fluting and edge-straightening them. (Luckily, I had remembered to edge-finish them on the scotchbrite wheel with the others a long time ago.)

Anyway, after fluting ribs 1 and 2 (the two inboardmost ribs)…

Not too exciting. 5 more to go.

While I was working, I kept thinking, “I should stop to take a picture…no…they’ll be okay with only a final picture.”

All 7 ribs ready to be matchdrilled.

Another shot.

50% clecoed.

Tomorrow, I’ll try to get this thing matchdrilled.

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Riveted Some More Right Leading Edge Ribs

May 23, 2011

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Well, after a very relaxing week-long vacation, I got back to work on the airplane.

I had previously prepped and primed three right leading edge ribs, so I figured this was a good time to get them permanently assembled.

Here’s a shot of the leading edge and the three ribs 50% clecoed.

Ready for riveting, sir.

The ammunition.

The rivet gun and bucking bar.

After setting half of them, I removed the clecos.

Not shown, I put rivets in the empty holes here, then shifted the tape over.

Guess who made an appearance when she heard the rivet gun.

IT'S GINGER!!!

I’m pretty sure when Jack heard the rivet gun, he headed underneath the bed.

After the top of the leading edge done for those three ribs, I flipped it over and did the bottom.

After all was said and done, I had 87 rivets set, none needed to be drilled out.

Here are some shop head shots.

Here's the fourth rib...

...fifth rib...

...and sixth (outboardmost) rib.

I just HAD to set it on the skeleton to see how it looked.

It was soooo light without all of those clecos.

Here's the top side...

...and the bottom side.

Then, I started pulling out the blue plastic. I only pulled out the sections where I didn’t need more riveting or where the leading edge landing light is going to go.

Pulling off plastic.

Shiny.

Sometimes, I worry that my careful devinyling lines are a little overboard, but then I see these primer edges, and it makes the extra time worth it.

Nice clean lines.

One hour today, and 87 perfect rivets.

(Honesty alert: I did have two small dings, both on the top surface. I hate it when I forget to start with the bottom, where no one will see any mistakes.)

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Set Eight Rivets

May 13, 2011

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Well, today is Friday the 13th AND the 500th (calendar) day of my build. Coincidence?

Of course, what else would it be?

The first day was 12/29/2009. 500 days ago. Estimating 2000 hours, I’m at 245 hours, 500 days…carry the one…calculator sounds…4081.633 days, or 11 years. Wait, I’m through 1.5 years, so…about 9.5 years to go!

Bummer.

Anyway, the primer dried from last night, so I grabbed some of the blind rivets provided in my leading edge kit (can’t remember the rivet part numbers) and got to pulling.

8 blind rivets.

Here’s how they look after pulling.

Not too bad.

Yikes. Not so pretty, but that's the way they are supposed to be.

Then, I set the other 3 nutplates (8 rivets total) and clecoed the three primed ribs into the leading edge.

It looks like an airplane part.

Next up, riveting!

0.5 hours, 8 rivets. Booyeah.

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Primed Three More Leading Edge Ribs

May 12, 2011

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Well, having primed leading edge ribs R4 through R6, I decided I better get them primed.

Before I could get going on the fifth and sixth ribs, I needed to crack open the leading edge landing light instructions again.

I want to make sure I get the holes for the light bracket nutplates done first.

Okay, looks like I need to go find the 10-32 nutplates.

K1000-3 nutplates...

Found them, then got the #30 to enlarge the center hole, put a cleco in, drilled one of the ears to #40, put another cleco in, and drilled the last ear.

Not many pictures with both sizes of clecos in them.

After doing all 4.

Guess what size drill I had to go find.

Yup. A 3/16″ drill…

...for the center hole.

After getting those ribs washed and the first coat of primer on them, I moved my attention back to the leading edge light holes. I forgot to drill the lens attach holes before. I held up the template, marked some holes, and fired the #40 through there.

I should have used my drill stop. Looks like I left little circles.

Same on the bottom side.

Finally, the ribs dried enough for me to bring them in the garage.

Nice ribs.

Maybe this weekend I’ll get to set some more rivets.

0.5 hours.

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Some More Work on Right Leading Edge Ribs

May 10, 2011

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Well, another boring night in the garage. I did dimple rib #4, then prep ribs 5 and 6.

Here's an action shot of me dimpling rib #4.

Rib #6 was providing some rigidity for my leading edge in the cradle, so when I was done prepping #5, I clecoed it back in place so I could get rrib #6.

The right leading edge on the bench, in the cradle.

I don’t remember why I took this picture, maybe just to show I finished ribs 5 and 6.

Two ribs?

Anyway, I’ll need to get the leading edge landing light thing sorted out before finalizing these two ribs (the bracket is mounted laterally between these two ribs.

One half hour of glorious rib prep.

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Prepared Right Leading Edge Rib Number 4

April 28, 2011

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(sarcasm)Whoa, what an exciting night!(/sarcasm)

I managed about 26 minutes in the garage tonight.

The picture below tells the short story. I grabbed leading edge rib #4, and deburred it, then redid some of my fluting, made sure the flanges were 90°, then went ahead and scuffed it with a maroon scotchbrite pad.

Maybe this weekend I’ll get the 5th and 6th ribs done, then get them primed and riveted to the leading edge rib.

From left to right: Deburring, Fluting, Straightening, and Scuffing.

Rounded up to 0.5 hours.

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