Vans RV-7 Build Log

258mp, changing blog hosts

2011-05-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

Today I received word from the FAA that I could have N258MP as my tail number which is exciting. I can now move forward with registration. I also just recently got my first report from a technical advisor.

In other news, with the newly minted tail number, and with issues with this blog host, I am moving the blog. Please follow me at http://258mp.wordpress.com.

Wing skins

2011-05-10T09:32:00.000-07:00

Saturday I got into the hanger again and started putting on the skins. I had done some reading of other people's build logs and was surprised to find out that most people didn't worry about the twist in the rear spar. The prepunched skins work to get out the twist and according to Vans you don't need to do anything else. Sounds iffy, so here is what I did.

I clecoed on the top skins. Instead of doing every fourth hole, I did every other hole with very few exceptions. Luckily I had ordered another 200 clecos. Unluckily, this wasn't enough still. Once the top skins were on, I moved to the back and started installing those, clecoing every fourth hole.

Top skins, every other hole.

Bottom skins, every fourth hole. Notice I ran out of clecos on the outter, bottom skin. I have since ordered an additional 300 clecos.... I'm supposedly at 850 once those arrive. Vans suggested having 350 as the necessary amount...

So with the skins on the top clecoed every other hole, and the skins on the back every fourth hole along both spars, and every fourth hole on the ribs on the root side, I hung plumb bobs on either end, and measured the distance between the line and the rear spar. Imagine my surprise when I was within two millimeters.

I had a friend come out who is an engineer to take a second look at it. He measured three millimeters. I still need to contact Vans before I sign off on this and start match drilling.

In the meantime, however, I put the leading edge back up!

There are a lot of clecos to be sure. That also means I have a lot of drilling... and deburring.... and dimpling.... I will be busy to be sure.

Wings Riveted, Help from the parentals

2011-05-10T09:26:00.000-07:00

The last weekend in April my mom and dad were in town. My dad being an aviation buff meant that he was ready to go to help out in the hanger. My mom is just an extremely generous person and wanted to hang out, so she got into it too. I had prepped the wing ribs and spars in advance so that they would be here to help me rivet them together.

Here is my dad clecoing the ribs to the front spar.

Mom getting a photo of us together. You can see the tape in my dad's hand that we used to protect the spar from the bucking bar.

My mom helped out by deburring ALL of the ribs for the right wing!

The first rivets! Here you can see the shop heads on the backside of the spar. You want the shop head to be on the thinnest material. This made the riveting a little more difficult, but I really like the results.

Here we are getting to the root of the wing. With all four ribs this close together (for the wing walk) it got a bit more difficult.

The rear spar clecoed on.

Removing the tape from the spar. You can see how it was setup to protect the spar.

On the left side here you can see the flush mounted rivets on the rear spar to the rib. Two of them are in place so far. The aileron mounting bracket will be mounted here and will go over these flush mount rivets.

Here we are again having a mental exercise trying to figure out how to get to those rivet heads inbetween. Because of the rivets holding together the reinforcement fork, we couldn't move the ends of the ribs out of the way to get in, so we had to get creative. I think for the right wing I will rivet all ribs except the last four to the front spar, and then again to the rear spar, and then I will rivet in these four.

Here we are celebrating completing the tough ones.

And me posing with the finished product.

Looks lined up and you can see me giving the thumbs up halfway down.

Just for fun, we threw the leading edge up on top after we put the wing on the jig. My dad helped me level the wing at both ends to get the twist out of the front spar. After that, we jacked up the center of the rear spar so that the main spar to get out the flex from the deflection. We used a piece of string along the length of the rivet holes on the spar to gauge when it was straight.

A very productive weekend and a big thanks to my folks, they both helped a lot.

Hawaii

2011-04-27T20:53:00.001-07:00

I just got back from some major relaxation in Hawaii, hence why the airplane news hasn't been rolling in. This weekend hopefully I'll get those ribs riveted on with the help of my dad who is in town!

Paint Time!

2011-04-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

Aileron brackets riveted! These things look very very cool. I did this inbetween coats of primer on the wing ribs.

Here is a picture of the "dusting" of the primer onto the ribs. I was at the hanger from about 530 to 845 painting them. It was pretty cool to see them painted and stacked.

Here is the aileron brackets before they were put together getting reprimed to get those freshly countersunk holes.

This was all done last night. This morning I woke up early for some reason so I headed to the hanger before work and grabbed all of the ribs. They look great! I need to do just a little touch up, but overall I'm really excited. Once my dad gets into town we'll be hammering the rivets home to get these attached to the spars!

Here they are sitting next to the right wing ribs!

Wing Ribs

2011-04-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

I wasn't happy with how the aileron brackets looked after spraying. I think I'm failing to get a good rinse of the etching compound. I ended up taking the wing ribs home and washing and etching them in the bathtub late in the evening so tomorrow I can straight from work to the hanger and paint them.

Also, it was pointed out to me that I forgot to countersink the aileron brackets for the flush mount rivets, so I countersunk those and have added them to the pile of things to prime.

Wing Ribs

2011-04-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

Tonight I went to the hanger with some new tools. First, I got a space heater to make painting work a bit better.

Then I started by tearing up some sand paper to deburr the edges of the corners. The tearing I think make it tear further too easily, so I began cutting it into strips instead.

While I was working on this, the paint tent was heating up. Once it hit 70, I sprayed the pieces for the aileron brackets.

I also cleaned and etched the ribs for priming once the edges were good! Here they are drying in the heated tent.

Finally, I was given some leading edge jigs so I set up the right wing leading edge. Here the two of them are sitting right next to each other.

Ribs

2011-04-12T09:19:00.000-07:00

I made a decision. Single conduit lines down each wing, but I wanted to open up the pitot tube holes so I could fit in plumbing for angle of attack (AoA). Tonight I did that, this time with the step drill instead of a hole saw. I found the results were better...

Also, my conduit arrived from Vans with the tie downs. Thats about all I did tonight...

Weekend in the hanger

2011-04-10T19:53:00.000-07:00

This weekend wasn't as productive, but I did get some new materials and such. My order from Vans arrived with the conduit and tie downs. I also decided that I was going to do a SafeAir1 pitot mast, and ordered that. From Cleveland tool, I ordered a double offset rivet set so I will be ready for the wing rivetting. But enough about toys, lets get building.

I put the right wing up on the table, match drilled the ribs to the spars, and dissassembled everything. I did not take any pictures of this.

I also made a quick jig for pilot holes for running conduit.

Then I went through both stacks and drilled the holes.

Once this was done, I deburred everything, pitot holes, conduit holes, tooling holes, corners, and basically am ready to clean, etch, and prime the ribs. I think I am going to get some emery tape though and do a bit more work on the corners while waiting for the summer to kick in and heat up my workshop.

Once I was done cutting myself on sharp corners, I started putting together the leading edge cradle. I got some 3/4 inch plywood with the help of a friend, and so I feel like its sturdy. It won't win any awards at a carpentry show though. Here I just have the skin in it.

I went ahead and clecoed the ribs in as well. I started on the top side of the wing and at the front of the leading edge, and clecoed up to the rear side. Then did the back.

Lots of clecos.

This will have to wait until I have the ribs riveted on, the skins tentatively on, and then it will get placed on.

Lastly, I match drilled and deburred the aileron brackets for the back. Heres the pile of them waiting to be cleaned and etched and of course primed.

In other news, I will be trying to find a new place to house this blog because apparently I'm out of space for photos. I want to include the full size images because its been helpful to see other peoples full size images, so I will be trying to locate a place to stash them for now.

Rear Spars, Wings

2011-04-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

Tonight I put together the rear spars. They had dried completely, so I assembled the left hand side. I started by taking a sharpie and putting a line through any holes I was supposed to skip for now. When I got to the two reinforcement plates, I switched and circled the holes that I could actually rivet because there were fewer of those. For the rear spar fork reinforcement, I put clecos in all of the holes I wasn't allowed to rivet. More on that in a bit.

Once all of the pieces were riveted on, I cleared off my work table and put the main spar down on the far side. I started placing the ribs into the appropriate slots on the main spar, and then clecoed them in. Then I started putting the rear spar on. The first few ribs went fine, but then on the fourth one, I realized I had moved the clecos to help pull the pieces together a bit more, and had then riveted the empty holes on the very ends of the fork. So this meant I had to drill them out.

Here you can see third from the left, riveted holes with sharpie marks across them.

I drilled out the first hole no sweat, it truly went just about perfectly (all things considering). The second one didn't go as well. Once it was out, I realized that not only had I riveted holes I wasn't supposed to, I had just removed one rivet that didn't need to be removed! Obviously I was a bit excited. I reriveted the hole, and drilled out the appropriate one, and continued down the wing. Once all the ribs were attached at both ends, I took a few quick pictures, waited for the grin to subside, and found someone else in the hanger to show it to.

Next, I went down each end and match drilled all of the holes. When I next go in, I'll be taking off the ribs, drilling out two holes for conduit on each rib, deburring all the recently drilled holes, and deburring the corners. Then its to the clean/etch/prime booth.

New Priming System

2011-04-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

After a quick tour of another RV-7 builder's shop, I decided to finally jump off the rattle can primer ship. I have been getting more and more frustrated by needing to evactuate the room after spraying, or wear my respirator the entire time, and after seeing the simplicity of his system, I switched. I got a cheap 15 dollar gravity fed spray gun from Harbor freight, set up a spray tent in my workroom, and ordered cleaner, etcher, and single part primer from Stewarts Systems.

The first items to get the new primer treatment were the pieces for the rear spars. Here is a picture of the rear spars. It seems to leave a good solid coat, and its a lot less toxic than the rattle can. I'm very happy with the switch.

Wings, Rear Spar

2011-04-07T12:49:00.001-07:00

Tonight I match drilled the pieces for the rear spar. I started with the reinforcement fork, and immediately wrote the note to myself to dimple the spar flange before assembly. I clecoed everything and started drilling. Not exciting.

Next, I did the reinforcement plate for the end because it was easy to put it flush to the edge. This one was relatively simple, just some drilling. For the middle piece, however, it was a little more complicated. The middle piece required more creative clamping, but luckily I had purchased cleco clamps. Next I took a sharpie and colored in the hole that needed to be removed. After I drilled all of the holes, I took the pieces apart and made two quick holes in the piece for pilot holes. The step drill worked wonders here, but I still ended up using a file to get the hole cleaned up and to the correct size.

Once complete, it was time to repeat the same steps on the right wing.

Tie Downs

2011-04-07T12:49:00.000-07:00

Tonight I started fabbing the tie down assembly. I started by cutting the inserts with my new bandsaw. Having a bandsaw makes life so much easier. A lot of other people said "don't wait, get a bandsaw" and I waited, and now will repeat their sentiments. Once I realized I could get a little one for just shy of $110, I jumped on it.

Here are the inserts sitting on the main spar

And now pinched under the tie down.

Next, I drilled one hole in the tie down using the measurements from the blueprint, and then attached it, using the spar as a guide for the other 3 holes. Once those were drilled, I bolted it and started drilling the next four holes that go through the little spacers.

I don't have many pictures for the next part because it was extremely frustrating. You have to drill the holes through the tie down and the spacers for the rivets for the nutplate. This was difficult to do because it was hard to clamp the nutplate to the assembly. I ended up using channel locks and then clecoing the first hole, and then drilling the second, but one of my tie downs has a nutplate that isn't lined up perfectly vertically.

Next, all that was left was to tap the end ( I tapped the wrong end, so I had to tap it twice), and then prime and assemble!

As a note, the same steps were followed for both wings.

Wings, Front Spars

2011-04-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

I got back to the wings now that I'm more settled in. I finished all of the countersinking and started installing plate nuts. Once those were installed, I did the countersinking of the bolt holes.

The spar got primed afterwards.

Here are more plate nuts mid spar.

All installed!

More priming...

New Workshop

2011-04-07T12:40:00.000-07:00

I was told we'd be moving hangers soon, and was allowed to select a room. I was under the impression I'd be able to start moving after March 1st, but I got a call one Saturday evening and told that all of my stuff had already been moved! A huge thanks to the people who carefully moved all of my stuff to the new location!

Now I have a room all to myself. It was originally a conference room so I get to use this big heavy desk as a workbench. It also has a nice cabinet in the corner which seems perfect for the bench tools...

I am absolutely thrilled to be in a bright, heated workshop now where I feel like I can make changes that will help the build.

Christmas

2011-04-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

Christmas rolled around and my folks got me a very very nice bench top drill press to help in the process. Heres a picture of me after Tyler helped me set it up.

Tail (kinda) Done!

2011-04-07T12:37:00.000-07:00

The completed tail! Heres some pictures of me too excited to do anything but grin.

Heres my friend Tyler who has lent a hand many a time.

Elevator take 2

2011-04-07T12:36:00.000-07:00

Well I decided not to jump ship and went back to work on the elevators.... The first elevator is complete, and this elevator is the one with the trim tab so its more complicated. Again I cut, match drilled, deburred, dimpled, and primed the reinforcements.

Heres the viking boat you build for counterweight.

Riveting on the reinforcements with the rivet tape I finally purchased.

The inside as the reinforcements are riveted...

All installed!

Putting the skeleton together for match drilling....

Next I needed to make the panel for the trim cable access. Here is the reinforcement plate that gets attached to the skin. I first match drilled it to the skin, and then dimpled the skin and the plate. You can see the dimples here.

Next I dimpled the inside holes, deburred them, and began attaching plate nuts. These were kinda a pain to install just because of getting access to the back of the rivet with the rivet set.

And the dreadful folding.... Heres my wood block inside.

Markings for proper location

The top block.

And my decently acceptable, but honestly bothers me, folded edge.

Deburred and primed, now its time to rivet!

The horn getting attached to the skeleton.

Next I attached the trim cable access plate assembly.

And finally riveted the skeleton in! With the help of some friends, we got the leading edges rolled and attached. It was actually really difficult due to the strength of the skin. It also means that we were trying to just get it done and didn't get any photos of the process.

Wings Arrived!

2011-04-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hooray wings have arrived! Luckily I had some help with inventorying the lot. Its a huge amount of stuff. I quit working on the elevators to make the first countersinks into the wing spar on the left wing spar.

The big row of em...

Elevators

2011-04-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

More parts with a single spar means more reinforcements. Here they're cut and in place to be drilled.

Stripped of the plastic wrap and deburred...

I did some fancy cutting on the inside of the elevator too so I can prime just where there is metal on metal contact.

Heres the outside of the skin, dimpled and ready for priming.

And now primed with the reinforcements installed, and the leftover blue plastic removed.

Horizontal Stabilizer

2011-04-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

After two failed starts on the spars for the horizontal stabilizer, I finally made some progress

I started by placing the spar reinforcements into the spar and match drilling all of the holes, including the mounting brackets. This is time consuming, but simple.

This part was a little more complicated. The is the front spar with two angle bracket reinforcements. They have to be bent at an angle, and the spar pieces at a matching angle. Then they need to get drilled.

Here are the rear spar reinforcements primed.

Heres the skeleton has been assembled minus the additional drilling necessary. Not all of the airplane comes predrilled, so you can see that the inside edges of the center doesn't have clecos, and neither are there any along the front spar between the ribs and the center ribs.

Here i've drilled in the front spar...

And starting to drill the front leading edge rib.

And the giant porcupine ready to get dissassembled, deburred, and primed before final assembly.

Heres a shot of the inside and the newly drilled holes along the center edge and on top of the front spar.

Oh yea, and dimpling...

Prime time!

And the rear spar assembly begins.

Riveting on the brackets

Assembled skeleton.

And the last few rivets to go!

Rudder Completion

2011-04-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

With the skins reinforced, I moved on to the skeleton. First, I put together the bottom assembly of the spar. This included the mounting bracket for the control wires, as well a reinforcement plate and the bottom rib. Because of the tools I had available at the time, I ended up going to a metal shop in town to get the shims made for me. When I tried to make them myself, I ended up with an ugly bent shim, which wasn't really helpful.

Next, I began assembling the top counterweight. The counterweight consists of two ribs with a heavy weight in between. The skin would be hard to work with if it was intended to cover all of this at once, so I also had to place a small piece of aluminum around the ribs.

Heres the rib with the skin clecoed on.

This was a lot of match drilling, with the compressor having to run at least once for each side. Luckily its far enough away that it isn't too loud. After I had deburred all of the holes, I removed the blue protective plastic.

And primed the skeleton pieces.

Here is the first rivets put into the rudder spar, and then the bottom with the pop rivets in place.

Here is where the weight sits. Once this was on, it was just a matter of riveting on the skins! Sort of...

The trailing edge had to be carefully riveted to make it as straight as possible. I ended up putting a rivet in every sixth hole, and then using my back rivet plate to keep the edge straight as I riveted in between. I was surprisingly happy with the result!

Here are the rivets, smooshed on both sides so they remain flush on both sides.

Then everyones favorite, rolling leading edges.

And rudder and horizontal stabilizer put together! Rudder complete!

Its been a while

2011-04-04T19:41:00.001-07:00

Woo! Its time to update the build log blog. I will be filling in what was done in the HUGE gap since I last published. I need to get the photos interspersed into the build log and post it here. Keep watching!

Just because

2010-07-25T20:06:00.000-07:00

Hey its a blog about me building an airplane! I can put some random aviation stuff here.

This weekend I went and looked at a small two seater to use for training. I've finished my private pilot, but need a large chunk of pilot in command cross country before I can begin IFR training. Buying a plane makes sense if it can reduce the cost of training. This was a pretty cheap plane, so it would've fit the bill well.

On the way back I stopped at the FBO to try and get a few charts but instead ended up spending ten minutes on the ramp. Due to the airshow in town (more on that in a second) they were out of parking spaces at the base, and so one of the Air Force pilots who was doing cross country flights to stay current parked it at the FBO. This meant that as I pulled in I did a rapid double take as there was an F/A-18 sitting there!

Definitely not something you see everyday. The next day was day 1 of the airshow. I went, and got completed sunburned. It was a pretty cool show though, with the Thunderbirds performing and a short visit from a B-2 bomber! Again, not something you see everyday. They of course had the Blackhawk helicoptors, transports, refueling tankers, and F-15 and F/A-18s out, but they also had a B-1 bomber. Since the RV project has meant selling off my cameras, I did not snap any pictures, but it was cool! Despite the conveniance, I hate being the guy pulling out his cell phone to take pictures. Unless of course its to video a B-2 bomber flying over....

Rudder

2010-07-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

So I screwed up a piece on the horizontal stabilizer again. As i'm reading Moby Dick currently, I can't help but feel like the horizontal stabilizer is turning into my white whale...

I did however get started on the rudder today. Vans suggests spending an hour or two often, instead of waiting a week and spending an entire day. Unfortunately my schedule doesn't always agree, so I hadn't gotten into the workshop since the previous Saturday, and spent the from 10:30 to 6 there today.

The rudder skin is in two separate pieces. Rather than have ribs down the entire length, it has ribs at the top and bottom, and then reinforcement along the inside of the skins. The skin is
really thin, meaning it wobbles and I had to be careful when deburring and dimpling.
Here is a picture of the reinforcements clecoed on to the skin. You'll notice they're square on each end still, and the plastic is still covering everything.

Here is a picture of the skin with the plastic removed where the reinforcement will go, and the reinforcements roughed out to the proper shape.

The reinforcement comes pre=bent and pre=drilled, but has two reinforcements per bar, and eight bars per bundle. I had to do a lot of trimming, and thus deburring on the pieces. Each piece also had to be cut down in length as the rudder is not one width the entire length.

Once everything was carefully deburred, I primed where the reinforcements would hit, and the reinforcements themselves, and prepped for some serious back riveting. Here is the primed skin with the rivets taped in for rapid attachment.

A lot of rivets were put in today. I find back-riveting to be very satisfying as it goes rapidly once you get them all taped in. Here the skins are all ready for the next step!