Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Section: 38
Hours: 5

Today I worked on the canopy latch system. The latch system is activated by a lever on the left side next to the arm rest. The lever moves a rod which is tied to a cross cabin tube which is linked to the engagement pins through a simple lever arm system.



I had to slightly reduce the diameter of the locating pins by lightly sanding them to get them to smoothly fit in the guide holes.



Monday, December 19, 2016

Section: 38
Hours: 5

The canopy frame is braced using temporary channels to ensure proper geometry and alignment. I clamped the cross channels to the bench to hold everything stationary while riveting.



The canopy frame fit very nicely on the fuselage after assembly.




Sunday, December 18, 2016

Section: 38
Hours: 5

I attached the side rails to the forward section of the canopy frame and did some more riveting today.




Saturday, December 17, 2016

Section: 38
Hours: 4

I couldn't fit the squeezer on these rivets so I resorted to using the gun as seen below.


 When you pull the rivets into the lower decking, the whole structure gets much stiffer.

Friday, December 16, 2016

Section: 38
Hours: 4

I continued riveting the canopy frame structure.


Thursday, December 15, 2016

Section: 38
Hours: 4

I started riveting the canopy frame today.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Section: 38
Hours: 2

Did some counter sinks and other prep work on the canopy frame today.


Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Section: 38
Hours: 5

Here is the aft canopy frame and the canopy handle after riveting.

The canopy assembly assembled with a many clecos. The cross bar channels are temporary to help with  alignment.


Sunday, December 11, 2016

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Section: 39
Hours: 5

I riveted the seat backs together today.



Sunday, December 4, 2016

Section: 38
Section: 39
Hours: 5

Today was slightly warmer and the sun came out this afternoon so I got busy and scrubbed, acid washed and primed a bunch of parts. I had finished off my last gallon of EkoPrime the last time I did some priming. I was hoping it would last- I don't have very many more parts to prime, but painting the wing bottom skins cleaned me out. So I ordered another quart from Aircraft Spruce. Today I discovered I ordered the wrong color. I got Smoke Gray instead of the Charcoal Gray. It turns out that the Smoke Gray is much lighter and it will actually be better as an undercoat for the Morning Patrol Gray I'm using for the EkoCrylic top coat in the cockpit.

Last week I purchased a butane heater so I could heat the garage. The directions on the EkoPrime can suggest applying with temps between 70-85 degrees F. Ambient temperature today only got up to 58 so the heater came in handy for getting the parts warm enough to paint.


Saturday, December 3, 2016

Section: 39
Hours: 4

Today Woody, Deb and I picked out a Christmas tree. Woody helped me put on the base and drag it into the house.

We put on the star and some new fangled LED multicolor lights and left Deb in charge of the rest of the decorating and retreated to the garage for some more RV-14 building!!!

I cut several hinge strips to size and match drilled to the channels. I also finished up some more prep work on the canopy rails including countersinks and match drilling. I now have another stack of parts ready for scrub, acid wash and priming tomorrow.

Friday, December 2, 2016

Section: 39
Hours: 4

There is a window of slightly warmer weather coming up so I decided I should get as many parts prepped and primed before the next wet cold cycle of weather sets in next week. Today I skipped ahead to chapter 39 and started prepping the seat back parts.

I filed the edges of all the heavy angle pieces and smoothed all the holes in the seat backs with the dremel drum sander attachment. I cut several pieces apart and trimmed to size using the bandsaw.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Section: 38
Hours: 4

It's been cold and I have been lacking motivation to get out in the garage the last couple days. Today I bundled up and put together the aft canopy frame and handle.

Here I am match drilling the handle to the frame halves. You cleco a spacer channel to the bottom of the two frame halves and then you cleco the pilot holes in the handle to hold the frame in position. I also clamped the spacer channel to the table to ensure the frames were flat while drilling.

I was able to use the squeezer to set all these rivets.  I'm now rethinking how I oriented the shop heads in the handle...


Here's the completed rear canopy frame with the spacer channel clecoed in place.

I finished up the day working on forming and match drilling the canopy side skin and rails. Lots of holes and the directions in the manual have you go through lots of steps with no riveting. Alignment is critical on these pieces to ensure a snug canopy fit on the fuselage.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Section: 37
Hours: 5

I reached a point where I needed to have the roll bar assembly riveted in before I could continue with the canopy frame, so today I assembled the roll bar.

First I clecoed the roll bar in place, hit it with a rubber mallet to make sure it was seated on the bases and then match drilled the required holes into the bases. Then I removed the assembly and deburred and cleaned up all the drill chips. Then I assembled it again and did the riveting.

The roll bar is pull riveted to the bases because there is no access to the inside. I used my pneumatic pull riveter for these. By the time I finished riveting the bases I had used all the rivets provided in the kit. They cut the count close- no extra opps rivets in this kit.

Here I've attached the bushing and the doublers with pull rivets.

The roll bar brace gets attached with some hefty pull rivets on the top.

The back of the roll bar brace is riveted to the fuselage using solid rivets. A couple of these were a pain to reach behind the bulkhead...

Flush rivets are used to attach the brace to the top skin.

I finished up today by riveting in the skin diagonal longerons.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Section: 38
Hours: 4

I started assembling the canopy frame. First I riveted together the canopy hinge assemblies. Then I riveted the hinge assemblies to the forward frame. I couldn't get the squeezer to fit so I resorted to using the rivet gun. The straight stick was too short so I had to use the longer bent stick to reach around the hinge.

Here's the completed rivets for the hinge to frame connection.

Then I used pull rivets to attach the forward and rear intercostal parts to the middle frame. Glad they called out pull rivets- too tight to fit either the squeezer or rivet gun in here.

Next I riveted the middle frame to the rear of the hinge assembly that was already attached to the forward frame. I could use the straight stick on these which made it a little easier.

Here's the hinge assembly riveted to the forward and middle frame.

I was then able to use the squeezer to attach the outer rivets to attach the rail base to the forward and middle frames.

Here is the forward part of the canopy frame all clecoed together. I used my pneumatic cleco gun extensively for this exercise. I was really happy to have it today- otherwise it would be carpal tunnel pain tonight - big time!

The plans have you use a digital level to match the angle of the left and right side of the rail base to make sure there isn't any twist. I spent 30-40 minutes twisting and adjusting the assembly to get it equalled out. It isn't a very stable assembly, even with all the clecoes and the cross brace angles.

I finally figured out that I could get the bases to match perfectly with no measurable angle difference just by laying it on a couple spacer boards on my perfectly flat EAA 1000 work table top. As far as I'm concerned, it's a total waste of time trying to adjust out twist using the method recommended in the user manual. The assembly just isn't that stable when it is upside down.

I match drilled the sides and added some more clecos while the assembly sat on the table and then carefully turned it back upside down to complete the remaining hole matching drill operations. When I turned it upside down the bases still measured out with no measurable twist.

The manual has you countersink the bottoms of the aft canopy rails but then shoot button head rivets with the shop side going into the counter sinks. This is a pretty clever trick! I was able to use the squeezer to get the shop heads perfectly flush.

Here's the manufactured head side. You end up with nice button heads on the inside and flush heads on the other.