6/26/2007
Today I finished up the last skin that needed to be drilled and dimpled. I have complete faith that this will not be an issue down the road when it is fitted to the forward portion of the fuselage. I know of one builder that did not fit a single part before drilling and dimpling, and all parts have fit fine (he has built several RV's). Since I am now done dimpling skins (there is one more small skin for the tip up canopy that will come with the finish kit), I decided it was time to sell my beloved DRDT-2 dimpling tool. This was the plan all along-to buy it, then sell it when done. It sold in one hour on VAF today, and is going to an RV-7A builder in Georgia that is getting started on his empennage. I still have the noise maker C-Frame to use if need be, but the DRDT was just to do the larger skins any time of day. It was THE BEST tool I invested in for the this project!
Anyway, the only other thing I did this later this evening was run the rudder cables thru the bulkheads. There is NOTHING in the instructions about doing this at this point, but Rob Johnson tipped me off to doing this BEFORE installing the baggage side panels. If you don't, you'll be removing the panels to get the cables in place...
The snap bushings have to come out to get the cables thru the bulkheads, and they need to be squeezed on to the cable in between bulkheads to be set back in place. I thought this would be somewhat of a pain, but I had both cables in in five minutes. Easy.
Here's the right side-
Left side-
And this is the area that you would not have access to if the baggage side panels were already put in place, which is next on the list of things to do. Van's train of thought here may be that the builder should know this stuff at this stage in the game, but I guarantee that if Rob hadn't told me, I would've put 'em on without the cables in place...
It's gettin' freakin' HOT here...
1.25 hours