Black Primer?

There are only a few parts of the fuselage that will be visible to the passenger in the section that I am working on now.  Most of these parts are sub floors, and interior supports.  However, there are still a few parts and I remember having a hard time with the painting process of the interior of the 9 so I decided to prime the visible parts with an almost black epoxy primer.  My hope is that the final coat will be tougher than on the 9 (less susceptible to scratching) but even if it does get scratched I hope that will be less visible with a dark primer under it.

This past week or so I have been priming, dimpling, deburring, and assembling the various bulkheads in the fuselage.  Here is the progress thus far.

Rear seat inner tunnel bulkhead panels.  These will be down in the foot well and as you can see have the front seat belt attach points riveted to them.  The holes at the bottom of the panels are where the rear seat heat will come from.

Its pretty hard to see the dark panels against the carpet but all 4 of the footwell panels are cleco'd in and you can finally start to see some structure come together.

Side view but even here it's still hard to see. 

Fuselage bulkheads

This week I spend most of my time working on the bulkheads for the fuselage.  This is particularly relaxing because its simple follow the instructions type stuff.  I also have very little priming to do on this section of the fuselage because it will never see water.  The tail-cone does get wet inside when it rains as water rolls down the vertical stabilizer, under the fairing and into the tail-cone.  However there is no place for water to normally enter the forward section of the fuselage so I don't plan on priming anything that is Al-clad.

This is the set up I use to rivet the big 470 rivets on the spar carrier bulkhead.  You can see the rivets set in their holes but you can't see the scotch tape that I used on the back side to hold them there while I drive them from above with the rivet gun stabilized by the C-Frame.  This makes for some very consistent and strong rivets.

This is the other end of the spar carrier where I have completed the riveting process.

Here is the rear portion of the spar carrier bulkhead.  You can see that it has several seat rail brackets as well as a couple of stiffeners that get riveted and bolted on.  In this picture I had already completed riveting the two outside supports similar to the first two pictures.

Back to work on the 10. Wingtips and Fuselage...finally

I've been waiting for this day for months now it seems but I finally got to start work on the fuselage.  The fuselage was my favorite part of the 9 to build so I'm excited to get started.  However that means endless hours of deburring for the next several sessions.  Oh well its therapeutic. <just keep saying that>

I also decided to finish riveting/epoxying the wing tip hinges into each wing tip.  I know there will be more work to do once I get ready to do final assembly but at least the VOR antenna is in and the wing tips are attached to the wing.

Oh one more thing, I got to do a little evening flying this week.  It was beautiful and I took a few pictures.

Right wing tip with VOR antenna mounted and attachment hinges riveted and epoxied in place.

Finally the first steps in the Fuselage phase begin...and on a beautiful fall evening to boot!

Oil cooler outlet ducting installed

Finally I was able to install the oil cooler outlet duct this afternoon.  This project took much more time that I hoped it would.  I think I printed out 3 different version, used the CNC to make one version out of aluminum and finally came up with this final design made out of the fiberglass and carbon fiber.  I probably wont get a chance to fly it until next week but I don't expect much of a change in the oil temps, only now I will have the ability to regulate the oil temperature on really cold days. (Edit: 9/30/18 - After flying this combination for about 4 hours now I am happy with the setup.  Project success)

This is the outboard inside view.  The servo will control the flapper in the middle of the duct opening.

This side has the 2" outlet nozzle that the heater hose attaches to.

View of the installed duct from the side of the airplane.

Looking up at the bottom of the oil cooler.  You can see in this picture part of the problem I had with this duct.  That engine mount strut was routed directly over the middle of the duct.

Looking aft from the front of the airplane.

Still working on the 9

I'm getting a little antsy to get started on the fuselage of the 10 but I promised myself that I would finish up a few projects on the 9 before I dug in to the 10.  So, what are these projects?  First I formed a new induction shroud for my intake.  The one I had in place was a 3D printed shroud with some fiberglass haphazardly slapped on to protect it from the exhaust heat.  It looked horrid but it did the job.  Now I have a nice new (painted) shroud with a slightly different flow profile.  I flew it this weekend and it worked perfectly.

Second I have been wanting to install some sort of automatic alternate air induction system that would keep the engine turning if I had some blockage in the filter or inlet port.  The blockage could come from flying into a heavy snow fall, ice, or even a simple plastic bag on takeoff/landing. 

Both of the first two projects are complete and the only remaining project is getting close.  The final project was to fabricate some sort of oil cooler exit shroud that would allow me to regulate oil temperature in the winter.  With the new oil cooler in place I expect I will have a hard time getting the oil temperature up to 180 degrees in the winter without some sort of ability to control the air flow.  Some people just block off the inlet air flow but since I pull my cabin heat from the oil cooler outlet I need the inlet air to flow normally.

Wow, this one looks weird.  This is looking down the snorkel of the new induction cone.  That black circle in the middle is the top of my K&N air filter.

The new snorkel from the outside.  Much better looking than the old one...and a bit lighter too.

Here is the new alternate air induction ports.  Actually you only see one of them here but there are 4 of these little openings on the circumference of the induction base.  My finger is pointing at the spring loaded door that is kept shut by both spring pressure and induction air pressure.  If the inlet gets blocked for any reason the engine will quickly go to manifold pressure (which is a vacuum) and the air from inside the cowl will force these little doors open thereby providing air for combustion.  The little fan up front will keep turning which means the pilot stays cool.

Here I am pushing the spring loaded door open.

Wings go to storage

I know its only been a few days since my last post but today was a big day in that it marked a shift in the build process.  Today Harry and Ben helped me load up my completed wings, drive them to the airport, and then Harry and Martin helped me unload them for storage in the hangar.  I still have a little fiberglass work to do as well as a few final assembly tasks such as riveting the pitot tube mast in but for now they are done.  Yaah hooo.

Here is a quick time-lapse video taken from one of our front security camera's.

https://video.nest.com/clip/eac13db2c2ee4d57a93d0bc739292f80.mp4

Wing tip attachment hinges riveted to the wings.  This was the last step I needed to complete before putting the wings in storage until final assembly.  

Not an everyday sight.  The wings had to be removed from the cradle so we could load the cradle into the back of my truck.  Here I laid a few blankets down on the driveway and then gently set the wings on the blankets.  Such an unusual sight that I had to take a picture.

Loaded and ready to go!  Thanks Harry and Ben!

Finally the wings in their storage location....my hangar.  You can see the 9's wingtip on the right side if you know what you are looking at.

Aileron actuation

Its been a busy couple of weeks since my last post but a lot has happened...not all of it RV related.  ;-)

However, what is RV related is posted below and includes completion of the aileron actuation linkages as well as the start of the wing tip work.  For the wing tips I opted to use the hinge method of attachment that I used on the RV-9A.  It looks great and seems to hold up very well.

With the RV-10 the aileron linkages are a little more complicated due to the added row of seats.  In the picture here you see the torque tubes and associated bell-cranks that get employed to transition the forward location of the control sticks to aft of the wing spars.

Here is the bell-crank that converts the left to right motion of the stick to an up/down motion that moves the ailerons.

Using the hinge method of attaching the wing tips requires almost double the amount of rivets compared to screws.  In this picture you can see that I am using a rivet fan to space the holes out evenly.

Another view of the rivet fan in use.

After trimming the wing tip to size I was able to get it taped, drilled and cleco'd in place for this picture.  Still lots of work left before this is complete.