Other Stuff-NEW!
March 2006 Wings
3/1/2006
No pics tonight. The only thing I did was correct an error I made last night. Today, I realized that I forgot to deburr the holes that are used to attach the aileron bellcrank and tie down housing. So, I took the tie down off, and deburred those four holes on each spar. It may not have made a difference, but it makes for peace of mind for me. I'll have to borrow the dial torque wrench from work again to torque those down later.
0.5 hours
3/2/2006
The initial work on the front spar is done, so tonight we move on to the rear spar. Started by removing the blue plastic from the stiffener pieces W-707D, E, F, G, and the spars W707A-L&R. These were all deburred using the wheel, edge deburrer, and fine sandpaper.
The main inner stiffener gets trimmed for use in the RV-7 (as opposed to the RV-8 which uses the same spar). So using drawing 38 and 10A, I marked those pieces for trimming, and cut the areas away.
Those are set aside for now while I work on the reinforcement plates W707E & F for the rear spars. These get clamped to the rear spars and drilled to #30.
Also had my first injury tonight...I cut (sliced) my finger on the rear spar flange while deburring! Man that hurts!!!
2.75 hours
3/4/2006
I had plans to work all day today since Brit was gone to a dog show, but other house things got in the way, plus I ran new plumbing for my filter/regulator off the air compressor. After completing that project, I trimmed W-707D to match W-707G and deburred them together to match. Then I drilled the pilot holes in W-707E to open up the hole for the aileron bellcrank.
The unibit worked great, and I finished opening the hole with the Dremel tool and a sanding drum. I didn't take a pic of it finished...?? Maybe later.
Then I cleco'd the reinforcing plates to the spar and final drilled all the holes to #30.
Pretty picture! Then it was time for my favorite building pastime...deburring.
2.25 hours
3/6/2006
I made the house stink tonight. I learned that priming with the garage door closed is a bad idea. I prepped and primed the rear spar reinforcement parts, and the rear spars. Did I mention the house stinks???
2.25 hours
3/11/2006
First, I have to give a shout out to my friend Libby because it's 311 day! She's the biggest 311 (the band) fan that I know!
Today, I continued work on the rear spar. I started by doing a little reading ahead. I've learned that this is an absolute necessity at this point, since the plans aren't spelled out for you like the empennage was. I needed to dimple the flanges of the spar where the reinforcement fork is attached because you can't get a squeezer in there to dimple after they are installed. The plans are actually a little backwards here. So, did that and then cleco'd and riveted the forks and plate that goes on top of it.
I started with the left spar, finished the fork, then started the right side by drilling and dimpling as I said above. Then I cleco'd the right fork and plate in place. It was at this point that I realized that I really wasn't feeling well. I got up at 4:30am this morning to get a start on the Saturday breakfast at my EAA chapter 129. I think that's why I wasn't feeling well. I was just drained from the early start, and some bad mexican food last night. Hopefully I'm feeling better tomorrow to get a bunch done.
Oh, I also ordered the DRDT-2 this past week. Should be here late next week! Can't wait for this tool!
1.75 hours
3/12/2006
Had a great day to work today! It was almost 70 degrees with a nice slow south breeze blowin'. I started by riveting the fork and plate on the right rear spar. The pic below shows the front and back of each of the rear spar inner portion that connects to the fuselage. There are several holes that do not get riveted at this point. They'll be used to attach wing ribs later.
I forgot to drill a few holes on the flange of both spars where the reinforcement plates attach. Did that and deburred those holes, then riveted the plates on both rear spars. The first picture shows how I gained access to the flange on the plates. They are very narrow, and the pneumatic squeezer yoke wouldn't fit in there. I had previously ground the yoke and female dimple die in the hand squeezer for something, and this came in real handy to dimple these flanges. I also had to do a little touch up priming where the dimples removed the paint.
You can see that I put the shop head on both sides of the spar. I don't have a longeron yoke yet, and these won't be seen. Plus, here it doesn't really matter which side the shop heads are on.
Then I began the dreaded task of deburring the wing ribs. This ain't gonna be fun...
Mmmmm ribs...
You can see the groove I've worn in the scotchbrite wheel from working on the edges of the ribs. It actually works nicely this way, in that it deburrs both sides at the same time.
4.0 hours
3/13/2006
Nothing fun or exciting to report tonight. Just a bunch of rib deburring. I finished the edge deburring and the lightening holes. Here' what the wheels looked like afterwards. I used the 2" wheel in the drill press for the lightening holes, and the 6" wheel for the edges. Worked great!
Then I started on the little bends and smaller holes with the hand deburring tools. Fun stuff.
2.75 hours
3/14/2006
More wing rib deburring tonight. I did finish it though!! I then started on seaming the flanges. You do this with the hand seamer tool. It's a pair of pliers with 3" wide flat jaws. The flanges need to be 90 degrees to the web for the skin to lay flat.
You can see in the picture above the stack on the left has not been worked on yet, while the stack on the right has. There are a few that need some revisiting, but there is a big difference. They aren't sticking out like the ones on the left.
1.5 hours
3/15/2006
No pics tonight. I finished the seaming of the rib flanges. These ribs are A LOT of work! There are 54 ribs/nose ribs to work on, and they all get the same repetitive treatment...next is roughing the surfaces for priming, then fluting. Yay!
1.5 hours
3/17/2006
No work today, but I did get my DRDT-2 today!! I think I'm gonna love this tool!!
3/19/2006
No pics from today. More boring rib prep. I marked all the ribs with the sharpie, then removed the stickers that Vans puts on them to mark the parts. This is one of the biggest PITA's about building. The stickers leave behind their adhesive, and this has to be taken off with something. I used some Fantastic and an SOS pad to take it off. It worked really well, but there's gotta be a better way to mark 'em. Then I started scotchbriting the ribs for primer. I decided to do this now since it's much easier to work with the flat surface rather than after fluting or dimpling. I didn't get all that far, but a start is a start.
2.5 hours
3/20/2006
No pics again. I just finished scuffing the ribs for primer. Interesting, huh?
1.75 hours
3/21/2006
I fluted... :) No really, that's what I did tonight! The ribs are now nice and flat, instead of distorted as they come from Vans (caused by stretching of the metal as they are formed). I took a few before, during, and after pics...the first one shows the ribs before fluting, very uneven, and far from laying flat.
These two show the tank ribs done, and a stack of unfinished for a good comparison.
And finally, all the ribs are finished except W408-1L and W409-1R (in left side of the pic). I'll have to ask around to see the procedure for fluting these since they are not pre-punched.
They look so nice stacked all nice and neat!
2.5 hours
3/23/2006
Tonight was a good night because I got to see for real, the picture from so many websites, of the wing ribs on the spars. I think I added a step that most others probably don't do, but I did it to clarify myself. I started by organizing the ribs into stacks of similar part numbers, and then I cleco'd all the ribs to the spars. This is the extra step, because I was unsure of which side of the ribs were the top of the wing. The left wing went together great...the right wing had me very confused. I bet I stood there starring at it for 20 minutes while I figured out that I had the ribs mis-marked, and they were on backwards. Simple mistake, it just took me a while to get it. I also made the angle that will support the outboard tip on the stands. I think I will replace this with some thicker angle, but it works for now.
Doesn't that look cool! It only lasted for a short while, while I marked the orientation of the ribs to the spars. I numbered the ribs all the way to #24, and marked the direction the flange faces...
...then it was gone.
With that out of the way, I made a template to mark where the pilot hole will be drilled for opening up the wiring conduit holes. I just used a scrap piece of AL and marked it with an arrow. The edge of the AL was lined up with the ridge and the flange, and the arrow meets the lightening hole. I marked the hole for punching, and drilled the pilot holes to #30 on all the ribs.
A good nights work!
3.0 hours
3/25/2006
I started today with the conduit holes in each of the ribs. They were drilled to final size of 3/4" with my unibit. This worked pretty well, but the bit chatters quite a bit in the drill press. Then I deburred each hole with the edge deburring tool, and I'll probably go over each one with a scotchbrite pad or wheel before priming.
Then I cleco'd the ribs to the main spars and cleco'd the rear spars to the ribs to start drilling those holes to size. I only did the main spars today since I don't want to crawl on the floor to drill the rear spars. I ran out to work to borrow a creeper to move around on. I'll drill those tomorrow.
2.5 hours
3/26/2006
Today started with drilling of the rear spars to ribs to #30 holes. That creeper that I borrowed from work came in very handy!
I thought I'd throw in another shot of me, so we can still prove at this point that I'm gettin' down and dirty building this thing!
Then I removed the rear spars for deburring. I also removed the outboard main ribs in order to drill the nose ribs to the spar. So, with the main ribs off, I cleco'd the nose ribs on. The outer most rib gets riveted with the main rib, so I didn't cleco that one in place. I just drilled those holes to size separately.
After those were drilled and marked for orientation, I removed all of the ribs for deburring. I'm not sure about getting these ready to prime yet because I would like to get these dimpled prior to priming. I'll have to check around to see what others have done here because from what I've seen, most prime the ribs at this stage.
3.0 hours
3/29/2006
No building today, but I ordered a few things from Van's. I decided I didn't want to build my fuel pickup tubes, so I ordered a standard pickup and an inverted flop tube. This is installed for aerobatics if I ever decide I want to go upside down!
3/30/2006
I did do a little work tonight, but no pics. I thought I had made a rather large mistake on the wing ribs by drilling the conduit holes on the top sides of the ribs. This is not ideal because the wiring will come in to the fuselage ABOVE the seats using these holes. After advise from some of my online friends and a call to Van's builder assistance, I decided to drill new holes on the bottom of the four inboard ribs closest to the fuselage. I'll just make a jog from the top to the bottom before the ribs get to close together so the wires can still be run easily, and they'll come in to the fuselage under the seats this way. The ribs are now ready to prime...
I also ordered the pitot-static plumbing kit from SafeAir1 today.
1.25 hours
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