Forward progress once again

Back from our trip to Boston and working on the plane again.  So refreshing!  Anyway tonight I was able to move forward once again.  I finished up the re-work and tweaked the longerongs a little to make them fit a little more closely to the skin.  I did all that with the fuselage sitting upright and then Travis helped me flip it over on its top as the plans call for.  Finally I drilled the longerons to the skin and trimmed the forward end of each longeron to be at least 3/4" from the end of the skin.  Doesn't sound like a lot but thats a lot of holes! See pics below.

I just had to post this picture that I took while in Boston.

Oh yea, I also made the bend at the aft end of the skin to wrap around under the fuselage.  this was not really fun but they turned out pretty goo.

Here is the fuselage after drilling the longerons to the skin.  All thats left is the forward 5 or 5 #30 holes that I will get to next.

This is the fuselage upside down on the saw horses.  Pretty cool under there!

Groan

Well, the new parts came in and can you see what is missing from the picture below?  Yep, I have to drill some holes that are going to be a little hard to line up properly.  The big holes on each end where the spar-wing bolts go.  I guess I should have expected that since the spar is machined as a single unit.  Oh well, I did manage to get most of the aileron trim parts ready for installation.

See those missing "BIG" holes?

Hard to see but the aileron trim bracket and arm are sitting dead center of the photo

Crotch work

Get your mind out of the gutter I'm talking about the crotch strap mounts!  Last weekend my friend Jeff was curious as to why I hadn't installed the crotch strap mounts and the aileron trim components yet.  Well I didn't have a good answer for him so I thought I better look into it.  Turns out that now is the ideal time to do these tasks so that's part of what I was doing tonight.  I also managed to finish up the drilling out and removal of the parts that I have to replace on the main bulkhead that I mentioned in my last post.

However, that's not all that happened today.  I had a little retail therapy today.  Yep, I needed a few rivets to replace the large ones that I had to drill out so I spent a little time ordering up a few items from Aircraft Spruce.  Odd that when I finally checked out there were a few more items in the shopping basket than a few rivets.  A couple of cylinder head wrenches and a few more drill bits ended up in there too.  But wait there is more!  Since I'm in the mode of installing a few things that are best done before I zip up the fuselage I sauntered over to SteinAir and had a chat with Jed about a few items.  At the end of the conversation I had a list of items that included autopilot servo mounting brackets, magnetometer mount, and a bunch of wire for tail lights and elevator trim.  All in all it was a very therapeutic day!  Ok, on to a few pics.

The crotch strap mount on Amy's (the co-pilot) side.

Another shot of the crotch strap cleco'd in.

The fwd half of the bulkhead after I removed the uprights.

The uprights about to go into the scrap pile.  Its just a shame!

Epic weekend!!!

This is one of those weekends you wish you could have every weekend.  Let me tell ya about it.  Friday evening Travis and I went to see the movie "Ender's Game" which I thought was a great movie.  It doesn't hurt that my favorite book growing up was the impetus for this movie.  After the movie we came home and he helped me finish up a couple of rivets in the tail cone that I just couldn't reach.

Saturday was a good day as well.  I was able to do lots of little prep work and even got in a little riveting on the center section.  You can see the pics below.  I also got to do a project visit for a fellow EAA chapter member that is building an RV-7.  He is a long ways ahead of me and is almost ready to hang his engine.  That turned out to be a super visit where I not only got to take a bunch of pictures but I also found out that there are several chapter members building RV's as well.  Thats something I didn't know about the Redmond EAA chapter since the RV guys seem to be a minority there. Amy came out in the early afternoon and we started doing a little clean up of the garage and we were able to reduce the stuff we have stored out there by a significant amount.

Sunday however was the day that made the weekend.  It was also the day that I found I made the worst mistake of the build but more on that later.  The day started out early with a little more rivet work on the center section, followed by breakfast out with a couple of friends whom you have all heard me talk about before.  Jeff and Harry came up from Puyallup to help me work on the plane today.  Oh My God!  I was amazed at how much work we got done today.  Obviously they both know what they are doing better than I do as they both have built an RV.  Anyway we were able to finish up the center section riveting, get the floor skins cleco'd and screwed in, and most excitingly we got the center section mated up to the tail cone.  Its really starting to look like an airplane fuselage now.

I was so excited about the progress that we made that when they left I decided to do a little more work.  Well, now the bad news.  I drilled the 904H doubler on the center section backwards.  None of the holes would line up when I tried to get it all put together so after about an hour of scratching my head I finally figured out what I had goofed up so I came in and ordered $35 worth of parts from Van's to fix the problem.  Fortunately it will be relatively easy to fix.  Anyway, off to some pictures!

Jeff (on the left) and Harry clecoing the skin onto the center section.  After the cleco's were in we prepped and riveted this whole skin in a little over an hour.  I was shocked at how efficient the whole process was.

Jeff drilling out some holes on the floor skin just prior to us mating it up with the tail cone.

There it is.  Center section mated up to the tail cone.

And here is the mistake.  That Silver piece with the H shaped bottom (904H) is the part that I put in backwards when I drilled it out.  Now I have to replace it and the two gold uprights (904C & D) that are on the left side of the picture.  Of course this means I have to remove a bunch of rivets....no fun.

Side view of the fuselage with the skins cleco'd on.

Center shot of the fuselage.

Quick update

No pictures for today since there hasn't been much to really show.  However I have been slowly getting through the dimpling and deburring of the center section.  Tonight I hope to have my rivet helper Travis over to finish up the tail cone rivets.  Tomorrow maybe I will get the skin dimpled since that's about all that's left to do before I start the reassembly process.

I wanted to post today because it just dawned on me that I just went over the seven month mark since I started working on this airplane.  I would estimate, based on feedback from good builder friends, that I am about 30% of the way done.  That's a little disappointing to me since I just want to fly but I don't want to rush this and be unsatisfied with the final product so I will keep plodding along as needed.  I am still very happy to be working on the biggest dream (or bucket list item if you will) that I have had since a child.  Its truly a dream come true to be doing this.

It's growing!

I told you it would be a while until my next update.  However, I spent the whole day in the garage again today and at least 4 hours with Travis helping me last night.  Travis and I managed to get a significant portion of the tail cone riveted and he is coming back on Tuesday to help me finish it up.  Today I moved on to the center section of the fuselage.  Lots of edge dressing, deburring, and fluting but by the end of the day I had most of the thing cleco'd together and ready for final drilling.

I also forgot to mention that I got a goody in the mail last week while I was gone.  My Tosten grips arrived!

I just couldnt wait. Had to take one out and give it a try.  To bad they don't come with wiring diagrams.

Yep, it fits nicely.

The center section of the fuselage all cleco'd together ready for some drilling in the morning.

The result of our work.  just the aft part to do yet.

Finally a whole weekend of work!

Yep, I got to work the whole weekend, or at least as much of it as my desk bound body could handle.  That equates to about 24 hours of pure airplane building bliss!  Now you would think that after a whole weekend I would have at least two to three weeks worth of progress to show wouldn't ya?  Hah!  I did make progress but not yet ready to hand the engine or anything.  The bulk of this weekend was taken up with deburring, dimpling and priming of the tail cone parts.  I know I said I wasn't going to prime any skins but I decided that I wanted some practice using my HVLP gun on large flat surfaces and that epoxy primer is so cool!  The final result was acceptable for a priming job but I will definitely have to have a bug/debris free area when and if I decide that I am going to paint.  The good news is there were no runs!

I did get a chance to be creative today.  Its time to start riveting my tail cone together and I didn't have any rivet helpers handy.  My normal victims are either at school, at work, or doing homework!  Sheesh, you think they would have better priorities.  So since I didn't have any help I decided to do the bottom to side rivets using my back rivet tool and a custom made block with a 9 degree wedge.  See the pics below.

I am traveling again this week so not much is going to get done for a day or two unless I can talk Amy into doing it....hmmm, nope no work will get done.

Tail cone right side after priming.

Tail cone bottom skin after priming

J-stringers sittin' in the sun drying.

Here is my creative little back riveting jig.  It really worked well.  If I were to do this again (and I would), I think I would elevate the tail cone another 4 inches or so from the garage floor.  It was a little hard to get the cleco's out and the rivets in at this height.

Here the tail cone is all put together and the bottom/side skins riveted together.