Riveted Some Things On the Right Rear Spar

December 14, 2011

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Tonight was a pretty exciting night. Not only because I got the flap brace and aileron gap fairing matchdrilled, but because I got to set 32 rivets I had previously skipped (see my previous rear spar riveting post from almost a year ago).

On to the pictures…

Here I am matchdrilling the flap brace.

I admit, this was a little posed.

Next, I matchdrilled the two aileron attachment brackets. For both brackets, I had to do a little filing to make sure the top edge fit nicely in the radius of the rear spar.

This is all that was needed.

After getting everything on the rear spar matchdrilled, I removed the components and also took the lower skins off. Now I’ve got great access to the rear spar rivets I’d previously missed.

I didn’t really miss them, it’s just that the spar was facing down, and I didn’t have a good way to squeeze them with my no-hole yoke. I could have shot and bucked them laying on my back on the floor, but I knew an opportunity like this was coming soon (well, almost a year later).

bottom skins are off, time for some riveting.

This bottom rivet was one of the troublesome ones before. I shot this from the top side, and it was a piece of cake.

I think there were about 11 of those or so, with 6 more on the rear spar reinforcement bar. Next, though, was this dreaded rivet.

If you remember from that last post, I had butchered this pretty badly 2 or three times, and Van’s had responded that a -5 rivet would work well here if the hole was too enlarged. (They also said a slightly undersized rivet head would be okay if you could engage the entire circumference of the hole.)

Yikes.

First drilled with #40 to make sure I'm on the center.

Then to #30.

Pretty good drillout.

The enlarged hole wasn’t really that enlarged, so I made the executive decision to stick with the -4 rivet.

This time, I set it from the top. Yes, there is a tiny smiley, but it's not worth trying to fix again.

asdf

And a nice shot head on the other side. (Sorry, had to use the flash to see.)

Finally, I deburred and riveted the aileron attachment brackets onto the spar.

After rechecking the plans, I noticed the lower rivet here should be flush. Really? Bummer. I'll have to get a threaded attachment for my countersinks to reach this one.

Same outboard bracket, this time the rib rivets.

Lot's of good shop heads.

Yup, there it is on the lower left. (I didn't show the legend, but this is a flush head).

Whoa, same on the lower rivet here (this is for the left wing, so it's mirrored for the right).

More riveting here.

Nice.

Umm, I don’t know why I uploaded this pictuer…

Redundant much?

1.0 Hours, 32 rivets, one messed up rivet from almost a year ago, finally drilled out. (I’m splitting up the hour into 30 minutes on the ribs, 30 minutes on the wing.)

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Posted by Andrew

Started the Left Flap

October 6, 2011

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THE CHANGING OF THE PLANS!!!! [triumphant music]

Wuhoo!

Okay, this time, I’m going to be smart, and start with the left flap (the one that’s depicted on the plans).

First, I found some parts, then pulled the blue vinyl off the spar and ribs.

That longer rib on the left is actually the wrong part. I assumed there was a L and R of the long ribs (forgot the part number), but those ribs actually are L-L for the left flap and R-R for the right flap. (The flanges of both ribs point outboard.) Weird.

Anyway, the directions have you mock the ribs up with the spar, then drill.

One thing that caught me was the #40 prepunched hole for the ribs, where they will be drilled to #30. Van’s doesn’t usually do this, but I confirmed on the plans (below) that LP4-3 blind rivets will go here eventually.

Weird, but okay...drill drill drill.

I love the very beginning of a new part because it goes together quickly.

See!? I'm already clecoing on the bottom skin!.

WHOA. Van’s basically tells you in the instructions that you will need shims between the “rear spar” and the aft end of the ribs. Why don’t I need any?

They must have tightened up the tolerances on the pre-punching.

I guess I don’t need to make those shims…

Anyway, after flipping it over…

It's starting to look like an airplane!

…I got a visit.

Ginger looking at the airplane, Jack sniffing.

Jack looking at the airplane, Ginger sniffing.

They also eat, sleep, and poo… (I can’t believe I used “poo” in my blog. Sorry, mom!)

Back to work!

I do need two spacers per flap, so I made four now.

Here's where they go. I'll drill the other hole later.

Next, they ask you to get the hinge out and start drilling it.

Hmm. I’m not quite ready for this tonight. I got it aligned with where I think it should be, but I want to sleep on it (and more importantly, surf some other build sites to make sure I’m on track.)

Hinge aligned, but not drilled yet.

Maybe tomorrow….

1.0 hour, and I feel like I got a lot done.

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Posted by Andrew

Sealed Right Tank’s Inboard Rib

July 4, 2011

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HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!!

Well, after stopping by Lowe’s today to pick up some latex gloves (I picked up latex instead of nitrile…I like the latext better), I got to work on sealing the inboard rib in.

For this rib, things were a little different. First, I can squeeze all of the skin to rib rivets (which is nice). Second, I have to pay attention to the reinforcement plates that need to go in place, and third, I have some fittings that can be installed once the rib is in place.

After buttering up the rib and riveting the 43 inboard AN426AD3-3.5 rivets, I ended up with this.

The clever readers will see the uppermost rivet on the right side is NOT SET. I caught it when I ran back outside later to count how many rivets I had set. (I knew counting rivets was a good idea.)

After getting the rib riveted in, I can now slide the reinforcement plates into place. (Like it says in the instructions, if you install these first, you won’t have room to squeeze the skin to rib rivets in the nose.) There’s a thick angle on the outside of the rib (shown below) and a thin .032 plate on the inside.

After lathering that guy with some pro-seal, I snapped this picture and got it installed.

That fan I bought a few weeks back is worth its weight in gold. It was 95°F today.

Fast forward a few minutes and some loud noises, and I had 6 AN470AD4-8 rivets set in the nose reinforcement area.

Perfect. (Well. Not perfect, but once I cover those smileys with proseal, you will never know.)

Fast forward another few minutes, and I got the flop tube installed with the -6 fitting on the inside and the nut on the outside, then I installed the vent tube (just flared) to the -4 fitting on the outside, you can see the aluminum washer and nut on the inside here. I made sure everything had a good bead of proseal around it before torquing everything down.

Nice.

All that’s left to do on the right tank is installed the anti-hangup brackets, rivet a An470AD6- rivet in the tooling hole of the outboard rib, and then close that bad boy up.

Oh, and fit the access plate with some stainless cap screws, instead of machine screws. More on that later.

2.0 hours. 43 rivets on the inboard rib. 6 rivets for the reinforcement plates. 1 drilled out (Easy as PIE!) Hope everyone had a good fourth. (It’s storming here. Boo.)

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Posted by Andrew

Inboard Tank Attach Bracket

June 6, 2011

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Well, my order came in from Van’s today. Here are the goods.

It's like Christmas, but in June.

First up, a W-408-1R, NOTCHED NOSE RIB. Turns out, I ruined the other one by not making sure it was all lined up prior to drilling. I have a good idea on how to make this one work out, so stay tuned.

Also included in this order, my flop tubes, and some snap bushings, which I needed to order due to all of the holes I drilled in the wing ribs. (Oh man, now I want a steak.)

Leading edge rib, flop tubes, and snap bushings.

Then, the proseal (black death!), fuel tank leak test kit, and 25′ of black corrugated tubing that should fit nicely in the holes I drilled in the ribs (see steaky link above).

Black tubing, proseal, and test kit.

Even though I REALLY WANTED to break out the proseal and start slathering it all over my workbench, airplane, hands, clothes, and face, I decided to wait until my popsicle sticks and syringes come in from amazon.

So tonight, I decided to work on the right inboard attach bracket.

After studying the plans, I grabbed the AA6…I’m not going to type out the part number. See the picture below.

Yup. That's it.

(Insert silence here where I tried for 10 minutes to figure out what R1 is.)

I’m really sorry to admit this, but I started scouring the internet. Googled “VAF R1 TANK ATTACH BRACKET” and “R1 NOTE DWG 16A VANS RV-7.”

To no avail.

Then, someone’s build site (can’t remember who), admitted that they spent 10 minutes and some google searches trying to find out what the R1 stood for before they realized that it wasn’t a note, it was RADIUS=1 inch.

Duh.

Okay, I’ve got some lines drawn.

Whose cute toes are those?

I think that is T-410 on the top of the picture. I used that to trace mirror images on the 2" side.

Then, I pulled a can of OFF from the shelf and used it to make a 1" radius circle. Then, connected the tangents after drawing a 1/2" line along each side of the bottom. (The drawing is half scale, and it was 1.4" on the drawing.)

After some sawing, I for some reason lost interest and broke out some of the snap bushings.

Two of the smaller size (SB375-4), and one of the bigger size (SB437-4).

Sweet. These will work perfectly.

Nice.

Umm, who took this redundant picture?

Okay, back to sawing.

Hmm. This turned out to be annoying with the jigsaw. Maybe I need a bandsaw.

Done.

Insert about 30 minutes of deburring on the scotchbrite wheel….

Deburred.

So, then I put it in the nose of the inboard rib, and admired how nicely it fit. (Actually, it still needs a little trimming around the edges.)

Looks good.

Okay, I didn’t do a good job of taking pictures here, but basically, I drew a line 1 and 1/16″ back from the tip of the rib, and then drew a line parallel to the front edge, but 2 diameters of the final rivet size (1/8″) away.

Here's where I got the 1 and 1/16" from.

Then, I marked and drilled 5 of the 6 rivet holes, along with the center hole, which is the pilot hole for the 9/16″ hole that the flop tube fitting will fit through.

confused?

Here's a better picture. 5 plus the pilot drilled, and I've laid in the AN nut to see where I can put the sixth (marked) without rivet head interference.

This is me trying to figure out what size hole I’ll need for the fitting.

0.563? What fraction gives me 0.563?

Obviously 8/16″ is 0.5 and 5/8″ is 0.625. Let’s try 9 divided by 16.

Wuhoo!

Apparently I don’t have a 9/16″ bit, but I did work my way up to 1/2″ and then lay in some AN470AD4-7 rivets so I could show you my good spacing.

How's it look?

Here's the other side.

1.5 hours. Still need a 9/16″ bit, but that won’t stop me from getting into the tank stiffeners, drain flange, and filler cap soon.

I’m actually looking forward to it. Maybe this week.

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Posted by Andrew

Right Tank Inboard Rib Work

June 5, 2011

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After another full weekend of housework, errands, etc., I managed to fit in some work on the right tank’s inboard rib.

First thing, I fished out some parts. Here, Vans has punched out three parts, T-407 and T-410.

Hmm...where are my snips?

I decided to pull both assemblies(?) out and get them all deburred at the same time.

Here are the two access hole doubler rings and four rib reinforcement plates after deburring.

I put two of the reinforcements and one of the rings away until needing them on the other tank.

Then, I took one of the rings, centered it over the stiffener bump on the inboard rib, and used a straightedge to find the center of the circle.

"x" marks the spot.

I know I’m not really working on the left tank right now, but  I decided that since I KNOW the circle cutter is going to be a PITA, I’ll just go ahead and do the left rib, too.

I fished out the two end ribs for the left tank and marked them so I knew which is which.

L1 and L7.

Before mounting the ribs up on the drill press, I needed to find some wood backing. How’s this tank-rib-shaped piece right here?

Pepsi should pay me for the product placement.

Whoa. That sucked. It sucked so bad, I didn’t even take any pictures. Among other things, the circle cutter 1) wouldn’t stay in one diameter, 2) shook so badly I thought my workbench was going to fall over, 3) almost killed me twice.

But, I finally managed to get a decent looking hole.

Phew, I'm glad that's over.

See? Nice hole.

Oops, looks like the hole was a little big. No worries, edge distance for the rivets is just fine.

The hole in the rib is a little big...

After some more cursing, cheating death, and general unhappiness, I managed to get a better (appropriately sized) hole on the left inboard rib.

I think I'm going to throw away the fly cutter now. Stupid piece of crap.

Okay, I’m straying from the instructions a little here. Normally, they want you to take this access cover, hold it against the rib, and use the prepunched #19 holes to drill holes in the rib. Then, hold the stiffener right aligned with those holes, and drill the nutplate attach rivet holes. Clear?

Instead, I’m going to eyeball the clocking of the access cover (so the flat part doesn’t interfere with the indentation in the rib), then just use the stiffener ring for all the drilling. (I need to order a new access cover with no holes in it because I’m using flop tubes (don’t need the small hole), which means I need to move the float sender to the second bay (don’t need the large hole).)

You can see in this picture, the stiffener ring is laid in place, and it looks like the access cover is clocked correctly.

Access cover in the foreground, stiffener ring in the background.

Clamped.

Drilled.

Dimpled the rib, and countersunk the ring.

clecoed some K1000-8 nutplates in place.

Here’s where things got frustrating. Because I wasn’t paying attention, I just started riveting the nutplates in place.

Clearly I didn't countersink enough.

Another view. Yikes.

I drilled out six nutplates (didn’t enlarge any holes in the rib or stiffener), but couldn’t get the rivets out of the nutplates. They got THROWED AWAY!

Sorry, nutplates. You are going in the trash. It's not worth my time to fix you.

Okay, more countersinking, then try again. Still not deep enough? Ugh, more countersinking again, and finally, they were deep enough.

I got frustrated, so I stopped taking pictures. Sorry.

After much cursing and angry mumbling, I got all 24 rivets in for the 12 nutplates.

I had to drill out two more rivets because they were sitting a little proud. In the end though, I’m happy with the results.

These didn't need sealant because the access cover will be sealed over them.

A shop head shot.

24 rivets, 8 drilled out. (one third!? Ugh.)

2.0 glorious hours today.

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Posted by Andrew

10 Rivets on the Left Elevator

October 10, 2010

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Well, I was outside working on the floors, trim, and shoe molding for the house today, and I had the urge to set some rivets. I got out the left elevator, and located a few candidates.

I had left a few of the trailing edge area rivets unsqueezed on the left elevator, because I didn’t have any way to reach them. now that I have my no-hole yoke, I could squeeze them.

No pictures, but they went in okay.

I moved on to the trim tab, where I squeezed two more on the inboard side, and then decided to try the last 4 rivets of the empennage…the trim tab outboard riblet I made.

3 of them went in no problem. The 4th? Nope. Drilled out twice, screwed up the hole, drilled to #30, used an oops rivet, still messed it up, drilled again, finally set, but it’s pretty ugly. I know it’s not structural, but that in combination with a couple other things means I’m probably going to join the “multiple trim tab” club.

[sigh].

But, the good news? Napa is having a sale on their MS7220 Self-Etching Primer.

[after walking into local Napa store]

Me: Good morning. I am looking for a can of 7220 Self-etching Primer. I usually use about a can per month, but I’ll buy a case if you can give me a volume discount.

Napa lady: No.

[awkward pause]

Lady: But I’ll sell you however many you want at the super sale price of $5 a can.

Me: Whoa! sweet! What’s the deal? Is Napa discontinuing this stuff?

Lady: Nope, they just choose to discount stuff every once in awhile.

[bought two cases]

Anyway. 10 rivets set, 3 drilled out. (This is not helping my average.) Half hour.

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Posted by Andrew

Drilled Right Wing Ribs to Main and Rear Spars

September 29, 2010

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Tonight, I drilled all of the right wing main ribs to both spars. Not a lot of commentary, so I’ll just get to the pictures.

After drilling the middle two rear spar holes for each rib, I moved the clecos into those holes and matchdrilled the upper and lower holes.

Rear spar, looking forward.

Same with the front (although the clecos are in front of the main spar here).

You can just barely see the clecos in the 2nd and 3rd holes of each rib.

Also, I have a question about some of the flange-to-flange holes. Here’s what I wrote on the forums:

Hello everyone.

I was working on drilling my main ribs to the main and rear spar last night, and the instructions say “drill all of the rib to spar attach holes.”

Then, they have you take everything apart, deburr, prime, and then rivet the ribs to the spars.

What should I do for the flange to flange holes? (Circled in green below, but there is one more on the ribs for the lower rear spar flange).

If I leave them as is now, I’ll be match-drilling them with the skins later, but then I won’t be able to deburr the holes (because the ribs are now riveted to the spars).

I could run a #40 bit through all of these holes and deburr before assembly. (I could also dimple the rear spar ones, since they will eventually be dimpled to accept the skin dimples.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Here's the same picture, but smaller, with green circles.

We’ll see what they say.

Here's a better angle.

Then, I pulled off the rear spar.

(What a sad moment. I have had this clecoed together for a week or so, and every time I go in the garage, there’s a wing! How cool is that? Now, I’m back to rib deburring (or catching up on the left wing). Not as exciting as a wing skeleton.)

After taking the rear spar off.

Everything taken apart for the night.

I can’t believe that took me an hour.

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Posted by Andrew

Started working on the Elevator Tab

June 20, 2010

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After some more days of not doing anything, I managed to make it out to the Pilots N Paws fly-in today. It was good motivation for working on the airplane.

Anyway, I’ve drilled the left elevator skin to the skeleton, and the next step is really to take everything apart, deburr, dimple, countersink, prep, prime and assemble…

BUT…

I have some things that need to be done first. Mostly, the directions want you to bend the elevator tab “ears.” Well, I don’t think I want to go the bent route. Here’s what I am worried about. I don’t think anyone would really notice, but I don’t love the way this looks.

Bent trim tab ears. I think I'm going to cut mine off and make little ribs.

I think with some work, I could make them look like this, but given how finished these surfaces are, I don’t know if they started as bent ears or riblets.

WHOA! This is awesome. This guy really finished this joint up nicely. Everybody be jealous.

Finally, I found a really nice riblets version. I like this, and this is what I am going to be aiming for (although I am going to try to use solid rivets.

Great finish on the cut-instead-of-bend tab ears. I'm going to strive to make mine like this.

Anyway, I also think cutting the ears off (not bent down in the way) will allow me to use solid rivets in the blind-rivet locations on the top and bottom of the elevator (outboard trim spar rivets). We’ll see.

First step is to get the skeleton re-clecoed in the skin.

The trim spar and the inboard rib.

Van’s wants you to countersink either piece for flush rivets (not for any real flush reason…I think they need to be #40 size holes, and they don’t give you any universal head AN470AD3 rivets). Anyway, per standard practice, I dimpled both.

Dimpled instead of countersunk.

After clecoing together the skin, I am ready to start the headscratching with the tab. Let’s find the tab spar.

There it is.

Let’s go ahead and cut off these tabs. After careful measuring and marking, I’m ready to put blade to metal.

Inboard side. I'm nervous about chopping these off.

Outboard. (see how I lined up the line parallel to the flat portion near the top and to the left of the relief hole near the bottom? This doesn't work. Read on to find out why.

After a quick snip (not too close to my final line) I removed the vinyl from the interior of the skin in preparation for using a file and scotchbrite pad to clean everything up.

Devinling before finishing those cuts.

After working carefully with a file and edge finisher…

Looks good.

Before I really finalize things, I’d like to get my tab placement set up. First, I tried using this extra piece of rudder stiffener.

It worked okay, but I later switched to something a little longer.

After some moving around and fiddling, I re-read the directions, which tell you to bend the elevator ears down along a bend line that is perpendicular to the hinge line. Well, that means that the cut lines should be perpendicular, too. Of course, like I mentioned before, my original outboard line wasn’t perpendicular. All that file work for nothing.

I drew new lines (one on top of the other, ignoring the needed clearance).

Drawing new, perpendicular lines.

Then, I made a “pretty close” cut with the snips. I’ll need to really clean this up, as well as move the line to the left for clearance purposes (I’ll wait until the hinges are drilled to really see what I need. (The instructions call for 3/32″, but that is for the blind rivet head clearance that I won’t have to worry about.)

Pretty close, but still needs trimming and finishing.

Next, I moved back to the tab. Here’s my new line.

I'm bummed because the upper part of the tab, factory provided, is not perpendicular to the hinge line. That means there will be a slight angle there. Bummer.

After getting those refinished, I got the tab mocked up. I kind of worked backward. I want to use the inboard edge and the trailing edge to get placement, then verify I have adequate clearance on the outboard edge and between the tab and elevator for the hinge (there are some hinge dimensions on the plans). I think I’ll have plenty of room.

This looks good, but I'll have to keep trimming that outboard edge.

Here's a closeup. You can see the edge near the top of the tab is angled a little left. This is how it comes from the factory. The marker line and aft portion of the tab are both perfectly perpendicular to the hinge line (line through the center of the rivet holes).

Later this week, I’ll work on getting this perfect, then tackling the riblets that need to be constructed before doing any more work with finishing the skin.

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Posted by Andrew

Primed E-709 Root Rib Right

May 3, 2010

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Well, after a few days of no work, then a few more of yardwork, and a few more of more no work, I made it into the garage tonight for an hour of work. Now that summer is approaching, the garage is getting a little humid. I’m going to start thinking about buying a portable air conditioner.

Tonight’s main task was to get any piece of the right elevator ready for assembly. E-709 (Root rib right) seemed to be a good candidate.

On the right, my trusty scotchbrite pad. In the middle, E-709 (Root Rib right). On the left. Well. You may call that beer. I call it "delicious."

Anyway, after deburring and scuffing, I broke out the #40 tank dies (understructure, so I want the dimples slightly deeper) and did all but the aft two holes on top and bottom.

Dimpling.

For my hard to reach places, I use a steel bar with a countersunk hole in it, put the hole of interest on top, and put in a sacrificial rivet to use as a male dimple die. Then, I grab a flush set, and push the rivet into the hole in the steel.

Getting ready to ghetto-dimple.

Here’s a closeup of my steel bar for you to admire. The hole on the right is what I use for these tasks.

The hole on the left is useless, since I drilled it too far away from the edge of the bar. Dumb me.

Anyway, here’s a shot of one side of the E-709 after using this technique.

The bottom dimple is from the tank dies, the top two are with the rivet trick. Not perfect, but not bad for the hard-to-reach area. Based on my experiences on the rudder, the skin will sit just fine in these dimples.

Off to the paint-shop. And by paint-shop, I mean “a piece of cardboard on my trash and recycling bins.”

Up with the garage door for ventilation and on with the respirator before shooting the first coat.

While that dried, I snapped an action shot of me devinyling the inside of the skins. I also deburred all of the exterior sides of the recently drilled holes, but didn’t get to the insides, I’ll do that as soon as I get back into the shop.

Oh man, those stiffeners and rivets look nice.

Here are both interior sides done. (And by “done” I mean “done devinyling with just the parts I’m going to deburr, scuff, dimple, and prime.”) The rest of the vinyl will come off just before riveting, and will reveal nice untouched (and unprimed) alclad.

Pretty pretty.

Crap, I forgot to take a picture of me shooting primer on the other side of E-709, which is the entire basis for the title of today’s post. If you feel shortchanged, feel free to complain.

One hour.

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Posted by Andrew