Riveting | Andrew's RV-7 Build Log

Right Wing Skinned!

November 18, 2012

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Hey, look at that!

We’ve got some major visible progress going on here.

Cousin Taylor came over today and we got the rest of the right wing lower skin riveted.

So shiny!

You get a landscape version, too.

It feels pretty good to have the right wing skinned. All that’s left now is some inspection ports, the pushrods (which I’ll probably postpone until both wings are done).

After that, I’ll get started on the left wing.

1.5 hours for two of us, so 3.0 hours. 178 rivets. Yee haw.

If I break down the hours so far:

Emp (total): 160.5 hours

Misc Wings: 10.5 hours

Spars: 19.0 hours

Ribs: 18.0 hours

Wing: 79.0 hours

Tanks: 46.0 hours

Ail: 27.5 hours

Flaps: 30.5 hours

Wings (total) 230.5 hours

Overall (total): 393.0 hours

HOWEVER. Some of this work (aileron, misc wing, spars) was some left wing work, too. I’m going to estimate time to finish the left wing as Ribs (18.0), Wing (79.0), and tank (46.0) hours. That comes to 143 hours remaining on the left wing. I’ll probably go a little faster than that, but this is a good estimate, and puts me around 550 hours when I’m done with the wings. That sounds about right.

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Bucking, right wing, Riveting, Shiny, shooting | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Finished Flap Brace, Inspection Ports

November 13, 2012

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Well, with a few short minutes available to me in the garage tonight, I tied up a couple loose-end rivets and started on a new little mini project.

First, I pulled off the right flap and set these nine rivets with my economy squeezer. No big deal.

Hooray, now the flap brace and flap hinge is completely riveted.

Another angle, showing a completely cleco-free inboard wing.

Then, with about 15 minutes left, I pulled out the inspection covers.

I forget the part number, but there are six of them. Three for each wing.

Up to the drawing to see what hardware is needed.

Looks like #8 hardware.

Go searching through my hardware containers…

There they are.

Uh oh. There’s another set of hardware there on the left for the forward side of the inspection covers.

Oh no!

Oh yes.

I drilled the first forward edge to #19 drill size, then dimpled for a #8 screw.

After trying to fit a #8 screw into a #6 nutplate, I realized my mistake, and drilled them correctly on the other 2 (I’m only working 3 at a time.)

Foreground is correct (#6 screws), background is WRONG (#8 screws).

It’s a sad day when I have to make a deposit into the scrap bin. (sigh)

But, I kept at it, and borrowed one of the left wing’s covers (they aren’t handed, just one of the ones that were allocated for the left wing.)

I got them screwed into the forward (bottom in this picture) edge, and started matchdrilling the center holes.

They’ll look good when they’re done.

0.5 hour, 9 rivets.

Time to go run!

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: flap, flap hinge, Inspection Ports, loose end, Reordered Parts, Riveting, scrap | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

The Case of the Missing Scarf

November 12, 2012

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Today, I had a day off work. This was excellent news because:

1) I needed a day off work.

2) The airplane needed me to have a day off work to get some stuff done.

Really, there are only a few things left on the right wing before I can call it complete and catch the left wing up. The lower outboard skin, inspection covers, pushrods, and wingtip. I’ll probably wait until both wings are complete to do the pushrods and wingtips.

That leaves the skin and the inspection covers.

Here’s the lower outboard skin, just kind of hanging on the wing (makes for good storage).

Also, You can see I kept my extra pieces of blue tape here while I finished the inboard skin.

After pulling the skin off, I realized that I already prepped the skin through deburring and scuffing the inboard side. Nice!

Already scuffed. (If you look at the date of the linked post, it was February….of 2011. Ouch.)

I guess you also get a closeup.

Anyway, I got the C-Frame out again and dimpled all the holes.

I did not dimple the wingtip attach holes. Haven’t even thought about those yet.

After dimpling, I cleaned the skin, took it outside, and got it primed between rain showers.

Back in on the workbench, it’s drying.

I still like doing the blue vinyl stripe trick.

While the skin dries, I went ahead and deburred and dimpled the rear spar. I was so lazy when I did the inboard wing, I only deburred and dimpled the holes required to get that skin in place.

Dimpling…done.

Then, I did the same deburr/dimple trick on the remaining spars.

You can see my conduit and wire-pulling string, also.

I guess this is another angle.

Okay, primer is dry. Let’s pull off the blue vinyl before getting the skin in place.

One bay.

All the bays. Man, those clean lines look good.

Oh, almost forgot to mention. Anytime you have a lap joint with two skins, don’t forget to use the edge roller to put a little kink in the edge. It helps lay the edge down when the two skins are pulled together.

My edge roller.

Here’s a good shot of how the skins lay on top of each other after rolling a bit of the edge.

Nice seam there.

After that, I didn’t think there was anything else before getting started. (I’ll come back to this.)

Getting the skin clecoed on.

After getting the first bay riveted, I realized I had forgotten to bevel the two skin edges like I had on the upper skins.

So, here’s my plan: leave it alone. The amount it sticks up is minimal, and the bottom of the wing is less critical than the top (so says physics). I’ll either remember on the left wing, or do it the same so they are symmetrical. I’m going to go talk to our super-smart aero guys to see if there is any real concern.

After the first bay…

Then, with much straining, pulling, pushing, stretching, etc. I managed to get the second bay done, too.

To help you see what I’ve completed, I pulled the blue vinyl off where I’d finished.

It looks soo good.

Counting rivets, that two at the top is a “carry-the-two.”

So. 3.5 hours, 107 rivets. Not bad.

Taylor, get your butt over here so we can do some more.

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Case of the Missing Scarf, Riveting, skin, Wing | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Three Eighths of a Hooray!

November 8, 2012

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Well, I feel like it was only a few posts ago that I had the ceremonial “changing of the environmental control system” in the garage.

Alas, it was cold yesterday in the garage, so we (yes! Cousin Taylor’s back to help!) decided to perform the heater ritual. Ah, the sweet localized warmth of the heater.

We were kind of elbowing each other out of the way all night to stand in front of it.

Last time Taylor was helping, we were just squeezing rivets on the flap.

This time, I needed his help shooting and bucking. Instead of just blasting off, we did about a 15 minute lesson.

I made him go through the whole routine:

Measure and Mark (see picture below), Drill, deburr, dimple…

Carefully marking a new hole on my practice piece.

Then, I shot one rivet, and then I made him do it alone, then we did a third one with him shooting and me bucking.

All three were perfect.

Since I’m so skeptical, I didn’t want to start into the bottom skins with only one teamwork rivet under our belt, so I drilled a few more holes and we shot the rest. They all ended up perfect, but we got a good feel for communication, etc.

I find it useful to explain that we want about 10 “hits” (although they happen so fast you can’t really count them) in about 1-1.5 seconds.

If some where a little light, I was able to ask for “4 more hits” or “6 more hits,” and he always delivered the perfect amount of additional shooting. Can’t ask for anything better than that.

We ended up setting the rest of the rear spar, rib, and main spar rivets (including about 8 that I couldn’t reach alone yesterday) and then 15 more on the flap brace.

For one of the “hard to reach” rivets, I was laying on the ground with my whole arm in the inspection port. I got my arm in there, then had to shift my whole shoulder into the port. Not comfortable, but we got it done.

Here’s the after shot.

We were too busy riveting to take any during pictures.

After getting the whole inboard skin done, we just had to peel off the blue tape.

You know, to give you a good reflection of my work benches.

1.5 actual hours, with 2 people. 3.0 build hours, 63 rivets.

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Cousin, Heater Ritual, Riveting | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

This is Not a Cry for Help

November 5, 2012

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No, I have not started cutting.

This is just me (and my hairy arm) working on getting some more of the right inboard bottom skin riveted.

Hairy arm!

Yup, it’s officially three days in a row!

I have to admit, though, that it’s a lot easier when you have all the rivets preloaded, and all you have to do is start banging away on them.

Tonight, I actually got two more bays done, in just 30 minutes. I couldn’t reach 5 of the rivets, so I really will need some help.

From this angle, the 5 rivets can only be reached from below, and my arm wasn’t long enough for both bucking and shooting. I’m sure I can get these with two people.

53 rivets in 30 minutes. Next time, I’ll probably be able to knock out the rest of the inboard skin, then start prepping and riveting the outboard skin. Wuhoo!

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Bucking, Cry for Help, Riveting, shooting | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

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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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Deburr, dimple, Riveting, Squeeze, String, vacuum | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

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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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Aileron Gap Fairing, cleco, Drilled, Flap Brace, Riveting | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Finished the Left Flap

November 26, 2011

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Whoa, two days in a row! With just a couple hours of riveting left, I knew I was close to finishing when I got the bottom skin on yesterday, so I made some time today to finish up.

Once again, I wasn’t in the habit of taking a lot of pictures, though, so you get some intermediate ones, and a couple finished pics.

After getting some of the rib-to-skin rivets set, I clecoed the spar in place with the hinge along the bottom edge, then flipped the flap so the top skin was up, and did my every-other-rivet taping.

I couldn't get a slick way to rivet the last two rib rivets at the bottom of the picture, so I followed the plans and used blind rivets.

Before actually riveting any of the skins on, I made sure to do the blind rivets for the spar-to-rib rivets.

These are all LP4-3s.

Whoa. I ran out after the exact correct amount. I’ll have to order more before moving on to the right flap.

Empty...

Then, I totally stopped taking pictures, but finished the flap.

Nice and shiny. No dings at all.

The bottom is nice and shiny, too, and only a few very small dings.

I’m starting to realize that I’m going to have dings in the project, and they are going to be visible. I think the whole polished airplane thing went out the window, so hopefully by the time I paint the airplane, all the dings will be filled, and you will be none the wiser.

2 hours today, and 164 total rivets all over the place. Whew.

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Dings, flap, Riveting | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Riveted Left Flap Lower Skin

November 25, 2011

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Whoa, Andrew’s building again. I realize that if I make that explanation every time I post, then someone clicking through the posts without seeing the date stamps is going to be a little confused. Anyway, I got a fair amount done today, and I’m feeling pretty motivated to keep some progress going.

Let’s get to the pictures.

First up, I have a whole bunch of primed parts, and I felt like clecoing some together (always helps the motivation to see assemblies rather than parts).

Here’s the left lower flap skin along with the ribs. I was very careful to review the plans to make sure I got all of the flanges pointing the correct way.

And yes, the flap is upside down here.

Here it is right side up. The plans or instructions don’t really give you a lot of hints on when to set which rivets, so you kind of have to think ahead. More on that later.

It's starting to look like a flap.

Next up, let’s get the top skin ready. First thing, I removed the blue vinyl and deburred all the holes on this side (I may have de-blued last time, I can’t remember).

Deburred and edge finished. Piece of boring cake.

Next, I started to de-blue the top of the skin, but I wanted to put some clecoes in the aft portion of the skin so the skin wasn’t resting on the workbench. This worked out pretty well for me.

Scuffed and ready to flip for more deburring.

I'm about halfway through pulling off this blue vinyl. It was cold out (so why do you have the garage door open?) and the vinyl adhesive was extra sticky.

After more deburring, I broke out the hand squeezer and put some new blue tape on my dies.

Ready for action.

Of course, I didn’t get any pictures…I’m out of practice…

I did take the skin outside after some more prep and get a coat of primer on it. While that was drying, I turned my attention back to the ribs and the bottom skin built-in spar.

I set 4 of these AN47AD4-4 rivets. Pretty simple here to squeeze these.

Then, I riveted on the nutplate on the left side of this picture, and riveted each of the AD4- rivets shown.

Great manufactured heads.

Great shop heads.

Then, I backed up a few steps and riveted the other angle bracket onto the inboard half of the spar. The instructions have you do this pretty early, but I waited until everything was primed.

Same thing. Good manufactured heads here.

And good shop heads here.

Once the top skin was dry, I brought it back inside and got everything 50% clecoed.

This part is exciting, there's riveting coming soon!

After putting some of the AN426AD3-3.5 rivets in, I put tape over each of the heads, and riveted.

Ready to rivet.

Then, I took out the remaining clecos, put more rivets in, moved the tape to the unriveted heads, riveted, then removed all the tape.

(Also, I cleaned up the skin before taking this picture, because I want it to look good for you guys.)

Wuhoo! 100 rivets.

I followed the directions mostly, except I was able to buck the 3rd rivet up on the left side. The plans allow you to use blind rivets there if you want.

Blind rivets in the aft two holes.

Wuhoo. 2.5 hours, 100 rivets. I’m back at it!

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: exciting, flap, prime, Riveting, scuff, tape | Permalink
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.