Started Riveting Right Lower Inboard Wing Skin

August 12, 2012

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Well, we had a great day today. Taylor was coming over for our usual family dinner on Sunday night, and I conned him into coming over at 4pm instead of 6pm.

A few small things on the list before starting to close up the right wing.

First, I had Taylor start on the deburring and dimpling of all the ribs and rear spar.

It’s tedious work, and someone has to do it.

In the meantime, I got the hammer out and continued using the c-frame to finish dimpling the inboard skin.

Nicely dimpled skin.

Taylor and I traded (to help with the boredom of deburring), and I sent him outside to prime.

He got SOME of the primer on the skin. (Just kidding, it looks great!)

Then, I clecoed the flap hinge on the flap brace and countersunk the flap brace. There is absolutely NO guidance here on how to finish the three layers (flap brace, hinge, and lower skin). I followed the same process as I did on the actual flap. Dimple the skin, countersink the flap spar, and don’t touch the hinge. Worked well, here, too.

Also, I marked the hinge for trimming.

Last up, I needed to run some string down my snap bushings for future wiring.

I used a long piece of hinge pin, and taped some string through it.

This worked great for me.

After all three were done.

Finally, with nothing else to do (after thoroughly cleaning and inspecting each bay), we started clecoing on the skin.

We carefully reread the directions to make sure we were going to rivet in the right order.

1) Rivet along the rear spar toward the tip (for one “bay”) and halfway forward along the rib.

2) Start on the second bay in the same manner, then come back and finish the first rib to the front spar.

We only had 5 minutes left until dinnertime, so we got the first 6 rivets of the first (inboard) rib squeezed.

I need to do a lot of blog reading to really feel comforatble proceeding in the right order.

Still, 6 rivets is better than zero.

4.0 hours. 6 rivets.

Oh, and then for dinner, these are tomato, spinach, and feta stuffed burgers.

Mmm.

With homemade pasta salad and some grilled asparagus.

So delicious.

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Started Preparing the Right Wing Lower Skins

August 5, 2012

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Well, after a busy morning at the SCBC, I did get an hour in on the lower right inboard skin. I’ve decided to go ahead and close up the right wing before proceeding. A lot of people wait until much later in the project (which the instructions say you CAN do if you want), but everyone who waits says there is no real benefit to waiting, so I’m going to go ahead and get them closed up now.

First, I pulled the skin off the wing, and then got to work. I spent about 30 minutes edge finishing, then another 30 dimpling about half the skin with the c-frame. (No, I didn’t forget to drill or deburr, I had done those previously.

This picture is from after edge finishing, but before dimpling.

After I finish dimpling, I’ll prime the inside surface. Then, I’ll deburr and dimple the wing ribs, and rear spar, but I’ll need to remember to countersink the flap brace.

1.0 hour.

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Dimpled Right Flap Top Skin

July 28, 2012

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After mowing the yard today, I was all hot and sweaty, so I decided to put in a half our on the right flap. (If I had gone inside to shower, then come back out, I would have gotten hot again, and ultimately decided not to work on the airplane at all, so I’m calling this a win.)

Anyway, the upper right flap skin was already deburred, so all I had to do was get the c-frame out and get some dimples hammered out.

After a few minutes…a freshly dimpled skin.

A more normal picture.

Half hour. But very close to starting to finish the final assembly.

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More Right Flap Work

July 25, 2012

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Alright, another night in the workshop. And, tonight was a super-night. Not because I’m super-rv7-builder (I am), but because my cousin Taylor came over to learn about the airplane.

After a little talking, I put him to work.

First task, empty out the LP4-3s that just arrived from Van’s (my first airplane package in awhile) into one of my empty yellow bins.

Not off to a great start, Taylor.

He quickly started exceeding my expectations though. To get going on this flap, the next few steps are tedious, but the two of us working helped to lessen the pain.

We focused our attention on prepping the right flap lower skin deburring, dimpling, priming, etc.

Here’s the right flap lower skin. Not a really helpful picture. Oh well.

After showing him each of those “d” activities, We stuck the skin outside and proceeded with my new non-psycho masking prime job.

(If you remember from a few posts (months) back, I’m only going to do the straight-line vinyl trick with areas where someone can see. Parts that are closed off will get this treatment.)

Priming along the rivet lines.

Next up, the same trick on the interior ribs.

Deburr, dimple, scuff, clean, and prime.

It started to get dark out, and I needed the flash. Sorry.

Then, so we could end on a high note, we studied the plans a little, read the instructions (a novelty!) and started clecoing everything together to get a sense of how we should assemble this flap.

Here, the ribs and spar are clecoed to the lower skin to lock everything together.

It’s starting to look like an airplane!

Flipped over for some more clecoing.

We decided we could start by grabbing the four AN470AD4-4 rivets at the aft end of each interior rib.

Beautiful! (Stefan, look! another shop head!)

One of Taylor’s (damn, looks better than mine!)

Just to prove he was there, I took a picture of his toes. (And an airplane part.)

Since he was so productive and really saved me some time, I’m going to count his hours as straight hours.

2.0 hours (but logged as 4.0). 4 rivets.

I know 4 hours per week won’t be super speedy, but it’s a hell of a lot better than I did between January and July of this year.

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Some Right Flap Work

January 8, 2012

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Oh wow, it’s the first post of the new year! (Too bad it’s already January 10th…yeah, yeah, I’m posting a few days after this build session actually happened.)

I got a little bit of tedious work done on the right flap before being called over to a coworker’s house to help with his brand new TV. Here are most of the right flap parts.

all the flap parts after matchdrilling (last session). Time for deburring and dimpling.

One of the things I noticed is that I forgot to enlarge these holes to #30.

Before.

After.

Next, I deburred all the spar holes, and got to work on edge finishing. This includes all the lightening holes, which are a PAIN IN THE BUTT to deburr. Because I have an AWESOME sister, she got me some good 1″ scotchbrite wheels. Previously, I had bought a bag of 50 “general purpose” wheels from Nebraska Surplus, but they were a little soft for work on the RV.  My sister got me some of the 6A-Medium wheels, which did the job perfectly.

The correct grade on the left 6A-medium. Don't get the general purpose ones on the right. They are too soft.

After edge finishing, I decided to get the spar set up for a little countersinking session. If you remember from the other flap, the bottom skin is dimpled, so the spar has to be countersunk so the hinge (on the other side of the spar) isn’t affected.

Set up, just need to cleco the hinge in place.

You can see here, I've clecoed the hinge in place and countersunk "a few clicks" deeper than flush.

I don’t know that I’ve ever shown this, but back on the empennage, I made a couple scribe lines on my microstop countersink cage to indicate perfectly flush for an AN426AD3- rivet.

Marked for a flush rivet.

Here are my "few clicks deeper." Four clicks work for me. YMMV.

After countersinking all the holes…

Pretty countersinks.

Oh man. I need to deburr the back of this soft hinge.

Burrs! Burrs!

Sorry about the bad picture, but this is after deburring.

With the blur, you'll just have to trust that it's properly deburred.

1.5 Hours. I’m struggling to get outside even for 30 minutes each night. Tonight, I set a reminder on my phone to buzz at me every night. Maybe it will work. (Nope, it didn’t work tonight, but I managed to post this work session. Maybe tomorrow.)

Until next time.

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Primed Some Left Flap Parts

November 6, 2011

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Well, another week later, and I managed to get out in the garage just once. I guess it’s better than nothing.

I decided to get some of the parts finished up and primed. I always like priming parts, because that’s usually what happens just before final assembly.

I started with the spar, spending quite a bit of time deburring, edge finishing, dimpling the upper flange (remember, the lower flange was countersunk to accomodate the skin, but not intrude into the hinge), and finally, some scuffing.

 

You only get a picture of the scuffing. Sorry.

Then, I started in on the prep for the ribs, and I noticed that the aft flange of the interior ribs are only drilled to #40. As part of my normal prep work, I reread the plans to make sure I know which type and size of rivet goes in each hole. Apparantly, this one is supposed to be drilled to #30 for an AN470AD4- rivet.

WRONG SIZE HOLE!

So, to make some extra work for myself, I clecoed the ribs and spar back onto the lower skin (which has the “rear spar” built into it), and…

Clecoed back together.

Drilled the holes to final, #30, size.

I haven't deburred yet, so don't mind the burrs.

Finally, I spent another chunk of time prepping the rest of the ribs, and getting them cleaned up to take outside for priming.

It was a beautiful day for airplane building today.

Too bad I couldn’t put in more time….just 1.5 hours today. Blah.

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Prepped Left Aileron Parts

September 29, 2011

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Well, the guilt of not working on the airplane very much recently finally got to me and I had to do something.

As it turns out, I got the rest of the left aileron completely deburred, dimpled, edge finished, and scuffed, which means next session will be prep for priming and final assembly after that.

Here’s a shot of the aileron main skin, after deburring, scuffing, and dimpling.

Nice dimples, right?

Not sure why I took this shot, but I had to break into my next pack of maroon scotchbrite. I cut them up into ~3 inch squares to work with.

This is good stuff. I wonder how much I've bought so far.

Then, I repeated the process on the spar, and finally the leading edge skin. In addition to the fingerprints, I also used my edge-forming tool to make a slight bend in the edge.

This helps the skin lay (lie?) flat against the other skin. You’ll see.

Sorry for the bad picture, but it's hard to get a good angle where you can actually see the bend.

Here’s the edge forming tool.

It might be time for new wheels. I think these are worn out.

After the edge was formed, I put the leading edge skin up on my bending brace because it is a good place to hold it, and went down the row with the hand squeezer with some dimple dies.

Action shot!

Halfway through, I noticed my blue-tape-on-the-die was wearing out, so I removed it.

Of course, I tried a few dimples again without replacing the tape, and I got circles.

Duh.

So, I replaced the tape, and got nice dimples again.

Circles on the left, no circles on the right.

Here's a new piece of tape. No more circles.

1.5 hours. Next up: cleaning, priming, and final assembly!

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Some Left Aileron Deburring

September 25, 2011

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Well, I’ve definitely learned something about myself this weekend. After I pass the initial excitement of a completed assembly, I have a hard time repeating all of those little boring steps to get the second one done.

I’m pretty sure I experienced this on the second elevator, I’ve definitely experienced this on the left/right wings, and right now, I’m having trouble motivating enough to get finished up on this left aileron.

BUT.

The other half of this airplane isn’t going to finish itself, so let’s get to it.

A few weeks ago, I left off on the left aileron after having matchdrilled everything, so today, I got it all disassembled, and started in on the tedious crap.

Here are most of the parts (except the skin) after disassembly. Let's start prepping.

The nice thing on this second aileron is that I’ve already done everything once.

No sweat here countersinking the counterbalance pipe.

A little deeper than flush, as usual, to make plenty of room for the skin.

Oh yeah, I had forgotten to flute the nose rib between the two x’s, so I marked them with…well…x’s, so I wouldn’t forget to flute, then drill them as I was taking everything apart.

I clearly went a little overboard on the flute there. I "unfluted" a little before matchdrilling.

Then ( I guess I was bad at taking pictures today), I clecoed the skin back onto the counterbalance pipe, balanced the assembly on a 2×4 (which was part of my bending brake I had attached to my workbench), and dimpled using the die from my borrowed c-frame.

They all turned out great, like the ones on the right aileron.

Then, I got to deburring and dimpling. I worked on the ribs and reinforcement plates, leaving the spar and skins until another boring day.

asdf

One kind-of-boring hour tonight. Maybe the next few sessions will pick up.

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Dimpled Right Aileron Leading Edge

September 15, 2011

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One picture today.

All I did was deburr and dimple the right aileron leading edge.

Shiny leading edge.

All I need to do now is edge finish and get the mating surfaces primed.

Then, cleco it to the spar, and get the right aileron skin in a place where I can start riveting.

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Deburred Right Aileron Spar

September 12, 2011

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Tonight was, once again, kind of a boring night.

After getting both ailerons mostly matchdrilled, I have a long road of prep ahead of me.

In about an hour tonight, all I managed to get done was the disassembly of the right aileron, plus some edge-finishing, deburring, and dimpling of the right aileron spar and reinforcement plates. (I started with those, because I can get those prepped, primed, and riveted before diving into more boring deburring. Getting pieces riveted together really re-motivates me…even if it’s just a few rivets.

Got the right aileron disassembled.

After edge finishing ALL OF THE LIGHTENING HOLES….jeesh, I looked through the manual and all over the plans for any clue on whether to countersink or dimple the aileron spar.

All I could find was something that said, “disassemble, deburr, dimple, and prime the components. Oh, and countersink the counterbalance pipe.”

So, it SOUNDS like dimpling the other parts are correct. What about the internet? Not much help there. Thanks a lot, Google.

Anyway, I gave the dimpling a shot on one of the #30 holes on the bottom of the spar, and stuck a CSP-4 (is that the rivet number?) in there. Looks pretty good to me. What do you think?

Looks good from here.

So, carefully watching for any flange distortion (there wasn’t any), I dimpled the bottom flange with a #30 dimple die and dimpled the top flange with a #40.

All done for the night.

That was about an hour, and while I could have started on the other one, I decided to pay a little attention to my family.

Puppies, here I come!

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