Sunday, March 24, 2019

Section 31 Begins

After a rather busy work week that included some travel I got a chance to start working on section 31.  This is the forward top skin and the instrument panel assembly.  There are a few modifications to this section simply because this is where most of the avionics will be installed.

Oh, and I did finally finish riveting the last parts for section 29 so I can officially close the book on that chapter.


First things first...Jeff and I had our first day of sitting next to the runway watching airplanes for the year.  Nice day!

This is the section of the airplane I am working on now.
This is the first modification I had to make the this section.  The center pane of the Panel will have a 10" G3X display (currently that is the plan anyway) but this rib interferes with the placement of the display.  So, I cut back 3" and then formed a doubler that will restore the integrity of the part.

Here it is all riveted together

This is what the panel looks like in a stock RV-10.

In this picture you can see that I overlaid the stock panel with the Aerosport 310 panel frame that I will be installing.  Its actually on backward here because of the flanges.  I wanted to see how much of a difference there was between the two and since both panels are symmetrical it didn't matter when way I put it in.

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Cleaning up a bit

I got a little help from some friends this past week...well actually two weeks ago to get the fuselage moved over to the new stand.  Harry also helped me finish riveting the aft top skin on the tail cone.  I'm almost ready to join the two but as I mentioned in my last post I want to try to keep things in the small garage bay.  That means its spring cleaning time!  I sold a few things, moved a few things, and trashed quite a few things.  Now there is enough room for the fuselage with the tail cone attached and it leaves me about 12" of space to walk around one end.  I hope this is enough for a while anyway. 

Not much for pictures this week simply because of the clean up work but here is the garage almost ready to get back to work.


In this picture it doesn't look as clean and open as it does when you can see the entire garage.

A few tools/parts that I am going to put up for sale soon.  I also have an extra pneumatic squeezer that I should probably add to the pile.

Sunday, March 3, 2019

Steps are in

After spending at least two months on section 29 I felt kind of weird when I was able to finish up section 30 in just a few work sessions.  Section 29 is not technically complete but its close.  This week I did get the gear weldments bolted in and that was quite a project.  Those weldments require a little "persuasion" to line up properly but I had already created a small AN3 persuasion tool (AN3 bolt with the threads removed and a tapered end) so I was ultimately successful. 

The steps were not too terribly hard to install.  I did remember to install those bushing I turned on Ben's lathe a few months go.  They fit nicely and I think the steps will stay nice an tight....or at least I hope so because getting those bolts back out will be a bugger with the floor installed on the baggage area.

Finally I finished off the week by building a fuselage stand that I will use for the remainder of the build (until I finally get it up on the gear).  I had grand plans of building a all metal adjustable stand that would last generations but after a few hours of cutting, a few welds, and a trip or two to the welding supply store I gave up on that project.  The design I used will allow me to use jacks to raise the entire fuselage high enough to put the gear in and that's all I really need.

The next section I am going to complete is the tail cone attachment.  Unfortunately that also means I may have to move to the larger bay in the garage.  I did a little measurement and its going to be darn tight in the smaller bay once the tail cone is attached.  I may be able to do a little rearranging and get it to work but its going to be very tight no matter what.

One of the first tasks to installing the steps is to cleco the baggage floor into place to hold the ribs in the proper position.  Once cleco'd in you bend them up and cleco them to the seat brace.  I did a modified version of this.

Next step is to install the step and the support block so you can drill the block into the rib.  I stopped taking pictures at this point because there wasn't much to take pictures of.

Oh yea, I had a little help from Jeff to get the tail cone down from the hangar ceiling sling I had it stored on.  Then Harry helped me load it up into Ben's Suburban.  Finally Ben came over and helped me unload it.  Now it sits in the ever shrinking garage waiting to be installed.  That is the next section.

Pilot side gear weldment installed.

Co-Pilot side gear weldment installed.

And finally, the new fuselage stand sitting under the aft end of the fuselage waiting for some help to lower it down.