Tail cone is almost done...for now

This week Amy is out of town on her grand trip to Paris with her kids so I got to spend a bit more time in the shop working on the tail cone.  I made some pretty good progress.

Tail cone cleco'd together and ready to rivet the side skins/stringers.

Oh yea, I ordered a gallon of primer from Aircraft Spruce early this month.  After lots of delays it finally showed up this week and this is what I saw when I opened the box.  Azko is very smelly stuff so you can see there was a small amount starting to leak out of the sealed plastic bag.

And this is what it looked like when I pulled the bag out of the box.  

And finally when I removed the plastic bag....what a waste.  Aircraft Spruce is sending me another batch and they filed a claim with UPS but this was a mess to deal with.

Here you can see the backplate that I am using to do the back riveting.  I have to tilt the tail cone precisely for each rivet on the rounded edge.  You can also see the 2x2 fixed in my vice that I used to brace the edge of the tail cone once I got it at the correct angle.

Speaking of correct angles for back riveting....this is how I knew my angle was correct.  I put this small round spacer next to the rivet I was getting ready to smash...then I tilted the structure until the round spacer lined up with the rivet, tied it off, and pounded away.  Came out very nice!  Gotta love gravity.

Tail riveted and bolted together.

Aft looking forward with the top skins removed

Everybody has to have one so here is another view from inside looking aft.

These are the clips I fabricated to hold the static lines as the pass over the bulkhead.

I plan on having a ventilation source for the back seats.  This is the drawing I used to cut the holes in each side of the tailcone.

And here it is after cutting the hole.  

Finally riveting again

I probably shouldn't have said "finally" in the title because I have a lot of riveting ahead of me but I find that the riveting part is the most fun simply because its the final step of assembly for any part of the project.  This week I finished up the priming and have started riveting parts together...fun.

A couple of the rear bulkheads in the tailcone.  You can see the tie down mount riveted to the bulkhead on the right.

Bulkhead frames riveted together

Riveting the J stringers to the bottom and sides.  I'm using a "back-riveting" technique and there is a 12x24" hunk of steel (from my table saw and not visible in this picture)  that I am using as the backing bar.  

More tail-cone work

I've been doing a lot of work on the tail-cone lately.  not much for pictures but I did remember to take some when I was doing a little priming.  The area I created for priming in the basement is really working out quite well.

The down draft table with lots of tail-cone parts.

And more primed parts...and there are still lots more to be primed.

J channel stiffeners before priming.

After priming....

Longerons and the bottom of the tail-cone skin.  I decided to prime this skin because water does get into the tail cone and will pool there if the plane is left outside.

Finally I got the right propeller

This week I finally got the correct propeller from Whirlwind.  I was very nervous that something else would go wrong since its been such an uphill battle with the front office at Whirlwind.  Not much has gone right in dealing with Whirlwind but I did finally get my propeller and it is beautiful.  Whirlwind was kind enough to paint my spinner as consolation gift for all of the errors that I have had to deal with over the past six months.  Starting with missed shipping dates (or incorrectly relayed to me), shipping the wrong prop, giving me a temporary prop to use while mine is being shipped, more missed shipping dates, and finally silence when I expressed my concern.  I had planned to buy a Whirlwind prop for the RV-10 but now I'm not so sure.  If I do it will be purchased WELL in advance of when I need it so they have lots of time to get me the correct prop.

Anyway, the new prop is installed and tested.  It works very well and maybe its just wishful thinking but if feels smoother than the demo prop I have been flying the past few months.  I flew it for about 40 minutes yesterday and was very happy with it.  No leaks of grease and no blade flex at all.

On the RV-10 I have made some progress this week as well.  I've finally finished up the elevators and trim tabs.  Next I'm off to the tail cone.  I contemplated waiting on the tail-cone because of the size of it but in the end I think I will just hang the completed tail-cone from the ceiling in the hangar when its done.  Maybe I can arrange it to look like an airplane crashed into the side of the hangar.  :-)

Leading edges of the right elevator completed.

Trim tab control cable mount riveted to the bottom of the access plate.

Access Plate sitting in the final install location

Elevator counterbalance inboard weight bolted in.

Outboard counterbalance weight bolted in.  If you look closely you will see some red liquid on the bolt threads...I used Loctite to make sure these nuts can't back out.  Just added insurance since these nuts are not accessible without drilling out the rivets and removing the fairings.

Finished Elevators with trim tabs attached.

The only thing I missed in this picture was the safety wire on the trim tab hinge pins.  That is now installed as well.

First step in working on the tail cone is to make this piece and tap the hole 3/8" threads.  This is where the tail tie down bolt will screw in.