Almost Done with the Right Flap

July 29, 2012

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Taylor and I came SO close to finishing the flap today, but my amazing fiance had some chicken parm in the oven, and by the time the clock struck 6pm, we had to head in to get cleaned up.

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. (The chicken parm was SO good.)

Anyway, I started the day off by finishing up some dimpling, cleaning, and priming of the two very small shims that go on the aft two holes of each end rib.

Not very exciting, but here they are.

Then, I clecoed on the top skin.

I”m so excited it’s going together for the final time.

While Taylor worked the cleco pliers to get the flap assembled to “every other hole,” I grabbed the flap side of the hinge from the wing and prepped it.

Deburred, and filed down the stump where there used to be an extra “eye.” Yes, that’s Dentyne in the background.

Gotta have fresh breath while building.

Here’s Taylor putting some rivets with tape in every other hole.

Nice action shot. I don’t get many of those when I’m building solo.

After blazing through the lower skin and ribs (goes really fast when one person is doing the clecoing and rivet-placing).

I love this part of building.

I did run into a small problem though. On the left flap, I waited to rivet the nutplate on the backside of the inboard rib. On this flap, I did it early, but then got stuck with one of the rivets. not enough room for a bucking bar, so I reverted to a blind rivet.

That one right in the middle. No big deal.

After flipping over the flap and getting all the top side rivets done (including getting the spar blind riveted into the ribs and the top skin rivets to the spar…

Oh man, we’re so close!

We don’t have that many more rivets to do. (Most of the outboard rib rivets, then the hinge-spar-lower skin rivets. That’s it.

1.5 hours today, but Taylor was so productive, I’m counting all his hours, too.

3.0 hours on the clock, 179 rivets.

PROGRESS!!!!!

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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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Riveted Aileron Stiffeners

September 5, 2011

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Happy Labor Day, everyone. Luckily, it was kind of crappy around all day, so along with some house chores, we basically stayed inside (and worked on the airplane!)

If you remember from yesterday, I had only gotten one aileron totally dimpled. Today, I got the other one dimpled, then cleaned up the skins and set them outside for a little rattle-can primer.

It was slightly windy, but it worked out okay.

Then, I took all of my stiffeners inside to do a more thorough washing, then set them outside on a piece of cardboard for drying.

I'll leave these outside for a little to dry.

After a few minutes, I primed them, let them dry fully, then brought them back into the garage.

Then, I spent about 45 minutes just putting rivets in the holes and taping them in. This felt like 2 mindless hours.

When I started to lay stiffeners in place for riveting, I realized that I didn’t get enough of the blue film off at the trailing edge.

Not a big deal, but I don't want that blue vinyl getting stuck under the stiffener.

So, I got out the soldering iron, waited for it to heat up, and trimmed up the aft area of each stiffener. After another shot of primer, I was ready to go.

Stiffeners are ready!

Okay, I’m pretty sure I have plenty of backriveting pictures on here, but I managed to get some action shots today. For most of the rivets (when the other half of the skin is not in the way), I use a short, skinny (~1/2″ dia.) set.

I got six of the seven rivets on each stiffener this way.

For the aft-most rivet, I use my double-offset backriveting set. I had to crank the psi all the way up to 60 psi, and it was still about a 3 second pull on the gun (instead of the more ideal 1.5-second pull), but it works.

(I change these up because on the elevators, I was bending the skin out of the way too much, and ended up tweaking the aft edge of the elevators. This backrivet set lets me get in there without bending the skin as much.)

Fits perfectly.

Also, remember to push down REALLY hard with your steadying hand so you minimize any tendency for the skin or stiffener to jump up. You want everything FLUSH against the backriveting plate.

I’m only stressing this because I’m having bad flashbacks to the elevators. These all turned out beautifully.

See? BEAUTIFUL!

Okay, I was having trouble counting the rivets today, so I just wrote it down.

Notice the last line!!! (Also, please check my math.)

Now, for some glory shots.

Nice shop heads. The last rivet is gray because I had to re-shoot primer after I had taped the rivets in.

Finally, I pulled the blue vinyl off the insides of the ailerons.

Man, these things really stiffened up.

So, 2.5 hours, 224 rivets, and none drilled out.

Next up, bending the aileron skins and then getting the skeletons together for some matchdrilling. (Also, I have to figure out whether I want to put the right wing in a cradle while I’m working on the left wing, or just leave it where it is on the stand. Hmm.

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Posted by Andrew