Deburring | Andrew's RV-7 Build Log

Some Right Flap Work

January 8, 2012

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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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: awesome sister, countersink, Deburr, Deburring, nebraska surplus, Right Flap, Scotchbrite | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Deburred, Dimpled, and Primed Left Flap Lower Skin

November 16, 2011

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Well, I’m still trudging along at this thing. I need to start getting my butt in gear a little more. Gotta finish this flap then get working on that other wing…

Tonight, I decided to do a little prep work for the left flap. The pictures are kind of lame, but deburring and dimpling are starting to get a little old.

Here's the left flap lower skin after deburring, dimpling, and edge finishing.

After dimpling everywhere I could with the hand squeezer, I had to get out the c-frame for 6 holes. After that, I thoroughly cleaned the lower skin, and dragged it outside for some priming. Here it is back inside for drying while I go upstairs to sleep.

Notice how I skipped the debluing with lines and such. I think I saved myself an hour here. I'll probably continue this wherever people (except readers) won't be able to see it.

Lastly, I pulled off the interior blue vinyl from the left upper skin, then immediately decided that sleep was more important than more deburring. Maybe I’ll get some more done this weekend.

I am getting close to assembly on this flap.

I should be more excited…but I’m tired tonight. Sorry, everyone.

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Posted by Andrew

Ten Right Aileron Rivets

September 14, 2011

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Well, I always love setting a few rivets, and I tend to work in little spurts so that I can set at least a few. The next few rivets in the project are the ones for the aileron spar reinforcements.

First off (no pictures), I grabbed the right aileron spar and reinforcement plates I deburred and scuffed yesterday, cleaned them, and got them outside in the driveway (on a cardboard box, on my trash bin) for some priming.

While those were drying, I deburred and countersunk the counterbalance pipe. This was way easier than I thought it was going to be.

To check countersink depth, I grabbed a CSP-4 (is it CS4-4?) I can’t believe I can’t remember the rivet number…anyway, and countersunk until it was just deeper than needed.

This may be a couple clicks too deep. I'll back it off on the next ones.

Then, time to deburr the aileron leading edge.

Yup, that's what I'm doing...

With that accomplished, I followed in many other builders’ footsteps and dimpled the leading edge by clecoing it to the countersunk counterbalance pipe balanced on a 2×4.

Mine didn't seem to move around much, so I'm glad I didn't waste the time duct taping small dowel rods down the 2x4 to steady things.

I fished out my (Paul’s) c-frame die and my #30 male dimple die.

Was this picture really necessary?

And, after a whack and a half…

Wuhoo! Looks like a great dimple!

A shot without the rivet...this worked great for me...like everyone else.

Okay, inside with the pipe for some cleaning, and outside to prime (now that it’s no longer being used as a female dimple die for the leading edge skin.

Let’s start on some more deburring, dimplineg edge-finishing, and priming.

I snatched up the two leading edge ribs, and spent about 45 minutes edge finishing all the little crevices with a needle file.

This part of building an airplane sucks.

But, after a few minutes, I had a deburred, edge-finished, and scuffed leading edge rib. Time for dimpling!

Yup. Dimpling!

After that, more cleaning, and those went outside for priming, too.

Just in time for my spar and reinforcement plates to dry!

Okay, which of these rivets can I set? (Ten minutes of staring passes...)

Okay, this is the outboard side. Those two AN426 rivets are just in there for hole alignment. They can NOT be set at this time, only the three on the left.

Of which I've set one.

Look at that beautiful shop head.

More rivet setting, and moving over to the inboard side.

Over there, the three inner-most rivets can be set, along with the two AN426AD3-4 rivets for the K1000-3 nutplate, shown.

The foreground-most holes are for the aileron bracket and the main rib attachments, the clecoed row is for the leading edge rib attachments.

I guess I needed a picture of the manufactured heads.

I think this picture means the counterbalance pipe and leading edge ribs are primed.

Sweet. Let's go find some blind rivets.

The plans call for these.

One in each side...

For a total of ten rivets tonight.

Good night. A few parts primed, a few parts assembled.

1.5 hours. 10 Rivets. Wuhoo! (Time for bed, I’m exhausted.)

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Countersinking, Deburring, Dimpling, Priming, Riveting | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

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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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Deburring, Dimpling, Drilling, Pro-seal, Stiffeners | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

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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Posted by Andrew

Prepped and Primed First Wing Rib

January 6, 2011

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Well, since my tool order from Cleveland finally showed up, I decided it was time to jump into rib prep full speed ahead. Because I have already finished most of the edges, fluted and bent the flanges to 90°, I really just needed to prep the lightening holes (which I couldn’t get to with the 6″ scotchbrite wheel) and use some emery cloth to get the smaller crevices.

Here’s the tool order. Along with 75 1/8″ clecos, I got 100 more 3/32″ clecos, a 2″ scothbrite wheel, the mandrel for that wheel, and some #41 and #19 drill bits.

I love new, shiny clecos.

I put a washer on the top of the mandrel and then screwed down the wheel.

Crap, not enough threads.

Took it apart, removed the upper washer, then assembled it again.

I'm showing one thread, but that's okay.

In order to start taking apart the wing to get at the ribs for prepping and priming, I needed to unjack the rear spar, which means I have to remove the leading edges, which are clecoed to the main spar before allowing the weight of the wing to bend everything.

Here are the leading edges on the workbench.

I guess I snapped a picture of my 320 grit emery cloth. (This isn’t really cloth, it’s more of belt-sanding sandpaper. It works, though.)

320 grit from NAPA.

I chucked the 2″ wheel in the drill press and started cutting grooves in it (with the ribs I was deburring).

That groove is from one rib's lightening holes. I'm going to need more scotchbrite wheels.

After completely edge-finishing the rib, including flossing the little crevices with the emory cloth, I dimpled the one hole in the rib that is underneath the rear spar flange, which also needs to be dimpled to accept a dimple in the skin. Here’s the right rear spar, lower flange hole that I dimpled.

Dimple!

Then, I primed the rib.

Still wet from primer...

The next morning, it was dry, and I snapped another picture.

Nice...

This took me about an hour, but I spent a good 20 minutes getting organized first. I won’t prime each rib individually, but I’ll probably do them in groups of 5 or so to break up the monotany. Tthere are 28 total main ribs…I’m not even going to think about the leading edge and tank ribs yet).

That one rib looks good, though. I need to think about ordering some snap-bushings for the holes in the forward edge.

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Deburring, dimple, edge finishing, prep, Priming, Rib | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Countersunk Left Main Spar, Drilled Left Rear Spar

November 13, 2010

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Well, I managed to motivate myself out into the garage a little this weekend.

I only have a few more steps on the left main spar, and the the left rear spar, before I really need to get my butt in gear with the rib deburring and finally build a wing stand.

Today, I focused on countersinking the screw holes for the tank attachment.

Reading back over my own old post (in which I reference some other builders), I found this table. I’ll copy it here, too.

Countersink Widths for Numbered Screws
Screw Size	Width [in]
#6	<0.3125
#8	0.365-0.375

So, I broke out my trusty digital calipers, zeroed them out, and dialed in .312.”

Sorry for the blurry picture.

So, with microstop countersink cage on the front of my drill, I got to work. Here are the smaller countersinks for the #6 inspection plate attach screws on the bottom flange of the left spar.

Pretty countersinks.

Then, I moved up to the 0.370″ countersinks for the larger #8 tank attach holes.

Looking good.

Somewhere in here I flipped the spar over and finished all the countersinking on the upper flange of the left spar.

Sweet.

After the countersinking, I scrounged up the left rear spar and corresponding doubler plates.

Left Rear Spar, reinforcement fork, and doublers.

Per the plans, I grabbed the W-707E and aligned it 50 3/4″ from the outboard edge of the rear spar.

I promise it is right at 50 3/4". I think the paralax make it look off.

W-707F is laterally aligned with the outboard edge of the rear spar channel.

W-707F is clamped and ready to matchdrill.

Here’s W-707E, ready to drill.

After drilling one #30 hole.

All done.

Then, I moved outboard to W-707F.

Before matchdrilling.

All done.

I call this the forest of clecos.

I moved inboard and matchdrilled all of the reinforcement fork holes.

A lot of drilling.

I pulled the doubler plates and reinforcement fork off and set them aside.

I still need to drill out the aileron pushtube bracket hole.

Reinforcement fork pulled off.

Next up, deburr all parts, along with finishing any last minute tasks like dimpling where I can’t reach later, then prep for priming, prime, and rivet the rear spar together.

1.5 hours.

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Clecos, countersinks, Deburring, digital calipers, left main spar, left rear spar, matchdrilling, reinforcement fork, Rib, wing stand | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Primed and Started Riveting Right Rear Spar

September 12, 2010

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Well, after a $15 stop at Napa ($10 for primer, $5 for sensor-safe RTV), I got back to work on the rear spar.

I spent a lot of time just kind of staring at everything today. The instructions are careful to point out that at the inboard part of the spar (where the reinforcement fork is), you can’t reach the spar flange holes with dimple dies for later dimpling, so you should do it now.

With that in mind, I wanted to make sure I got everywhere that may need dimpling later, so I also dimpled above the two (middle and outboard) doublers. You can see in this picture (the middle doubler) where I decided it would be a good idea to dimple (drill, deburr, then dimple, of course) the flange holes. I did this for both the spar and the doubler plates, which also have flanges on them.

The middle spar area, shown after drilling, deburring, and dimpling the flange area.

Same thing here. Also, I dimpled the 4 outboard holes (instead of countersinking), per previously approved builders who have talked to Van's.

I got back to thinking about the tank dimple dies, and whether they were really helping with skin-to-structure attachments. The idea is the the tank dies (which are deeper to account for pro-seal while riveting the tanks), when used on the skeleton, allow the regular dimple in the skin to sit better once riveted.

I got out some scrap, dimpled the “skin” with regular dies, and dimpled the “skeleton” with one tank and one regular die.

You can see on the left, those are the regular dies. The ones on the right is a regular die sitting in a deeper tank dimple. The tank dimples didn’t help anything sit better, because they were both fine.

A little blurry, but the "skin" sat equally well for both set of dimples.

The tank (deeper) dimple is on the right. You can see I'm not having any "seating" issues on the left.

Anyway, I think I am going to go back to using the regular dies on everything. Enough about that, though, let’s prime!

The rear spar components, getting primed after some more edge finishing, washing, drying, and positioning in my wood floors boxes.

Also, I went back and masked off the spar where I had countersunk.

Some of the nutplate attach rivets are not as flush as I would like them to be. I may get a rivet shaver and shave some of these down and reprime. We'll see how the tank skin sits on them.

Back on the rear spar, I posted a couple pictures of my edge finishing procedure. First, use the Permagrit block to smooth out the tooling marks. This picture is the resulting burrs that need to be deburred.

The permagrit is great, but it does leave some pretty decent sharp edges.

Then I used my “v” deburring tool to knock off the 45°.

After this, I usually use a scotchbrite pad to smooth everything out.

After blowing the aluminum dust off with shop air and a good wipe-down with MEK, I took the spar outside so I could paint the grass with my overspray.

I think this is the second side. Only one bug landed on my spar. I left him there for now. (He may be my first passenger.)

After a few hours, I returned out to the garage (workshop/mancave) to do some riveting.

First step: Ignore Van’s suggestions to tape off all of the holes that don’t get riveted now. (I know the warning bells must be going off right now, but it all worked out fine. Just have to read the plans carefully.

I left clecos in all of the “do not rivet now” holes. 6 regular AN470AD4-4 rivets on the left, and some AN426AD4-4 (I think) rivets in the dimples on the right.

SEP 14 UPDATE: WHOA! Those 4 on the right can’t be set now, because the W-712 outboard rib will get riveted to these holes, too. Glad I didn’t get to happy with the rivet squeezer.

These 10 can be riveted now. (Sep 14, 2010 Update: Nope. Just the 6 on the left can be set now.)

Same exercise here. Only 5 rivets can be set now.

I didn't really mark anything here, because I didn't really start on riveting the fork on yet. Next post, I'll be very careful about what to rivet.

Then, I actually started riveting. I love my new Cleveland Main Squeeze. Squeezing these An470AD4- rivets is so easy now.

Here are the 5 shop heads from the middle of the rear spar.

The same 5 from the manufactured side.

Oh, and I did 6 more at the W-707F doubler plate, but forgot to take pictures. 11 total. Also, I was mixing this and house projects over the course of a few hours, so I’m going to estimate it was about 2.0 hours today.

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Deburring, dimple dies, Dimpling, Drilling, edge finishing, flange, Permagrit, primer, Rear spar, reinforcement fork, rivets, RTV, scotchbrite pad, tank dies | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Left Elevator Counterbalance Skin

July 13, 2010

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A short half hour tonight. First thing was to grab the primed end ribs and get them clecoed to the left elevator spar. No problems there.

Looks good. Ready to rivet (but not tonight).

Next, I need to get the counterbalance skin taken care of (must be riveted to the skin before the skin can be riveted to the skeleton).

You can see I clecoed it in place and drew a line where the two overlap; I'll use this as my primer line.

Then, I realized I’m going to have a hard time deburring, dimpling, and scuffing with the blue vinyl on. [sigh] Off with the vinyl, re-cleco, redraw my line, then back off to deburr, dimple, and scuff.

After dimpling with tank dies where the skin sits under another dimple, and regular #40 dies where it doesn't.

While I had the #6 dimple die out (I’m attaching all fairings with screws for now), I moved over to the elevator skin and dimpled there, too.

Make sure you drill all holes that need to be dimpled with the #6 dies to #28 drill. This is slightly larger than the #30 you are used to.

Again (for the search engines), the correct drill bit size for a #6 screw and #6 dimple die is #28. Ask me what happens when you dimple a hole that isn’t drilled to the right size. (Hint: the same thing that happens when you overdimple using something other than a dimple die because you are too cheap to buy a #10 die…see below…)

Okay, back to the counterbalance skin.

These are dimpled to #8 (I don't have a #10 dimple die). last time, I used a punch set (with a little rounded lip on it) to enlarge the dimples to the equivalent of #10 dimple die.

Let’s countersink the counterweight as a female dimple die.

Looks good.

Uh oh. I went a little far with my makeshift die. I stared at this for approximately 0.0000001 seconds before realizing I had to scrap the part.

See the ginormous cracks? Yeah. Not good.

A closeup of the other one. Oops.

So, the reordered part count is up to 2.

I’m not worried, I have some other stuff I can be doing while I wait for a replacement counterbalance skin (E-713, $8.85) from Van’s. Also, I immediately put in my order with Avery for a #10 dimple die (along with some clecos, an edge roller tool, and some more drill bits).

USE THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB, ANDREW!

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Leave a Comment » | Empennage | Tagged: #28, #6 dimple die, blue vinyl, clecoed, counterbalance skin, Deburring, Dimpling, end ribs, left elevator spar, primed, scuffing, skeleton | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Primed Right Elevator Skin

May 19, 2010

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Well, it was a short night in the shop tonight, but after almost a week without building, it was a productive hour.

All that’s remaining before riveting the right elevator together is to finish up deburring, dimpling, and priming the right elevator skin, and doing the same (as well as getting a big enough dimple for the counterbalance attach screws) in the counterbalance skin.

First thing, I grabbed an oversize drill bit and started deburring.

I still can't bring myself to buy a deburring tool. Maybe I'm being stupid. (Who got sawdust all over my right elevator skin?!)

Then, I realized that the holes on the very front edge of the skin (for the pop rivets after you bend the leading edges together) will be very difficult to deburr if I wait until after bending to matchdrill them. I decided, like on the rudder, to drill and deburr them now.

Just making sure the #30 bit is the right bit.

After drilling, this looks like it will fit the bill when I am ready to start riveting the leading edges together.

After getting all of the holes deburred, I grabbed my scotchbrite pad and got to work scuffing. I grabbed an intermediate shot so you can see what I am doing.

Scuffity-scuff scuff.

After scuffing, I cleaned everything up with MEK (because it’s harder to clean well with the dimples) and started dimpling. Here is the inboard edge of the right elevator (which is upside-down on the table) after dimpling with #40 dimple dies.

I love dimpling. Don't know why... (Whose palm prints are all over my elevator skin!?)

A before and after shot of dimpling.

Please no comments on the lack of edge finishing here. I did all the edge finishing after this step.

Like I said, after edge finishing and another wipe-down with MEK (and the requisite drying time), I put the skin up on my garbage bins and shot some primer on the interior surfaces. If you look closely, you can see where I have left the blue vinyl on the inside of the skins. That is where I don’t want any primer (weight savings) after I am done. When the skin is dry and ready for riveting, I’ll pull the vinyl out and be left with nice shiny, untouched aluminum.