Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Section: 37
Hours: 5

I started work on the roll bar structure. This consists of 4 heavy aluminum formed parts riveted together with straps. Today was spent filing edges, counter sinking and deburring holes and trial fitting to the fuselage.

Monday, September 26, 2016

Section: 35
Hours: 5

I finished assembling the forward upper fuselage parts.

Here's the wiring channel with the nut plates applied.

This assembly supports the canopy and the instrument panel.


Next I riveted the upper longeron assembly to the fuselage. The plans specify that you seal the joint between the side skin and the longeron, I assume to make it water tight. You don't want water leaking in while flying in the clouds. I started by masking off the side skin and applied a thick bead of ProSeal between the side skin and the longeron. Then I squished the upper longeron assembly down on the ProSeal and clecoed it in place. I shot the pull rivets using the pneumatic pull rivet gun and then cleaned up the excess ProSeal and removed the masking tape. Sorry I don't have pics of those intermediate steps- my hands were sticky from ProSeal. Here is the final result.

I'm glad I purchased the pneumatic rivet puller- it made this task much easier.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Section: 35
Hours: 3

This afternoon I started riveting together the upper forward fuselage parts.

This bracket required some tricky riveting. I was able to use the squeezer for most, but used the rivet gun for a couple that I couldn't reach. There are also a couple pull rivets.

It's hard to believe the canopy is entirely supported by these bulk heads, but I'm sure the structure will be pretty stout by the time the outside skin is applied.

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Section: 35
Hours: 4

This morning I acid etched and then primed the forward fuselage parts.


Section: 42
Hours: 4

This afternoon I riveted together the nut plates and doublers to the floor covers. I also riveted together the flap motor cover assembly. Here they are laid out in the cabin.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Section: 42
Hours: 6

I primed the cover plates this morning while it was still cool.

This afternoon I scrubbed up the upper forward fuselage parts so I'll be able to prime them tomorrow morning.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Section: 42
Hours: 3

I spent a few hours this afternoon washing the cover plates and prepping for primer painting.
Woody always supervises operations involving the hose and water.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Section: 42
Hours: 4

I filed edges, deburred holes and prepped the cabin floor cover panels.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Section: 42
Hours: 4

I finished doing the inventory for the finish kit and then reviewed the chapter 42, titled Miscellanea, which shows how the various cockpit cover and finish pieces go together. I think I will paint all these parts at the same time as I do the interior. Now that I see what they cover I also know what I will have to mask off before painting.

All the pieces with blue wrapping are from the finish kit. They cover up the central wiring and cabling tunnel and the area under the seats that give access to the wing plumbing and wiring. All these parts are screwed on so they can be removed to access the wiring and plumbing later.

I could not figure out how to get the F-01439 seat ramp cover to fit. The bend in the seat ramp panel does not match up with the bend in the seat cover panels. I wrote to Van's tech support to ask if the part is correctly manufactured, but I won't hear back from them until sometime next Monday.

Friday, September 16, 2016

Section:
Hours: 6

I'm trying to figure out how much of the interior needs to be painted and I decided I really needed to see how all the remaining finish pieces fit. Soooo, I got out the crowbar and opened the finish kit crate that had been sitting on the driveway for a couple weeks. I spent most of the day unwrapping and checking the inventory list against parts in the box. Deb helped me fold up and dispose the many yards of wrapping paper. Filled a whole garbage can.

My shelf of parts that was almost empty is filled up again with finish kit parts. Here's the many bags of hardware for the finish kit.

These bolts are the ones that hold on the wings. They come with protective plastic mesh to keep them from getting scratched or marred. You wouldn't want a wing bolt to fatigue and fail in the middle of a loop because of shipping damage...

Here I picked out a few pieces from the finish kit and laid them in the fuselage to see how they fit. Looking more like an airplane than a canoe!

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Section: 32
Hours: 6

Today I put in the flap motor channel and the baggage compartment side panels.

Here's the new pull rivet gun in action shooting a rivet into the baggage floor splice.

The flap motor channel really stiffens up the seat back brace. The motor brackets were a little tricky to fit in and rivet. I used the squeezer for the rivets that go into the seat back brace and used the rivet gun for the rest.

Here's the channel and splice riveted in place.

Lots more pull rivets went into the baggage side wall panels. I hand pulled about half the rivets in these because the gun wouldn't fit.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Section: 32
Hours: 6

I FINALLY finished riveting the baggage floors!

The plans called out for a couple pull rivets in the area around the step access panel, but I was able to shoot solid rivets everywhere. Since I'm building the tail dragger version, I'm not installing the heavy aluminum fittings for the outside step so there weren't any obstructions to riveting.

I also layed out the UHMW (ultra high molecular weight) bushings per the plans. This thermoplastic polyethylene has extremely long polymer chains and has the highest impact strength of currently available plastics. It is also self lubricating and has a very low coefficient of friction and is 15 times more resistant to abrasion than steel, which makes it an ideal material for bushings.

I used to have a drafting circle template but I couldn't find it today. I was scrounging around for circular objects with radii that would match the callout in the drawing when I discovered I had a complete set- the sockets from my socket set!

I used the band saw to cut along my layout lines. From previous experience I knew it would be hard to sand to the final dimensions so I cut really close with the band saw. The UHMW is tough stuff and does not easily sand on the belt sander. Luckily, Van's already machined the close tolerance stuff- the bushing hole and the bolt holes.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Section: 32
Hours: 5

I ran over to Harbor Freight and picked up a pneumatic pull rivet gun. After I got home it took a couple hours of fiddling to get it set up and working. The instructions for the gun have you take off the bottom lid of the vacuum canister and check the oil level. It was really hard to get the lid off and the oil level was fine. Then I switched out tips so I could shoot the LP4-3 rivets and discovered the small tip that came with the gun was clogged with metal flash. I had to drill it out before it would accept any rivets. Then I installed the air hose adapter and everything worked! The instruction manual is a little wonky, but the gun came with a set of replacement parts so hopefully I can keep it running for the duration of the project.

After I started using it I noticed some small drops of oil were landing on the work. There is a good size air exhaust on the front of the gun that burps out a small amount of oil with each shot. I taped a couple layers of paper towel over the exhaust to catch the oil before it gets all over my clean primed surfaces. I plan to put a finish coat of paint in the cockpit area and would prefer not to have it contaminated with oil.

I was able to shoot the remainder of the pull rivets in the remaining baggage floor. The rivet gun gives a very satisfying "thunk" sound when it pulls the rivets. The gun was too big to reach the rivets at the outside edge of the floor so I still hand pulled some rivets.

I started setting the solid rivets and nut plates along the inside edge but didn't quite finish up. To be continued tomorrow.

Monday, September 12, 2016

Section: 35
Hours: 2

I've been researching avionics for some time. Now that I have some panel structure in place, I couldn't resist trying out some visual aids. I printed out full size pictures of the gear I'm interested in and mounted them on mockup cardboard instrument panel sections. I'm looking at installing Garmin radios and displays. The center stack will have a GMC 307 auto pilot controller on top, a GTN-650 GPS/COM/NAV and a GMA 245 audio panel. The left panel will have a G3X 10" touch display and a small G5 attitude backup display. I may mount an iPad on the right side so the passenger has something to fiddle with. Behind the panel I'm planning to install a GTR 20 backup com radio and a GTX 45R ADSB/transponder. There's still lots more to figure out...

Section: 32
Hours: 3

This afternoon I started the task of riveting the baggage floors in. There sure are a lot of pull rivets in this section. Tomorrow I'm going to pick up a pneumatic pull rivet tool at Harbor Freight before I wreck my hands. I don't want to spend the next couple weeks recovering from RSI.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Section: 35
Hours: 8

I made good progress prepping more parts for the forward upper fuselage.

I finished match drilling the side rail decks and removed them to countersink the rails. At the suggestion from other builders, I taped off the gap between the side skin and the rail channel to prevent chips from accumulating in the gap there.

Lots of chips from counter sink drilling.

Here's the dimpled rail caps clecoed onto the counter sunk side rails for test fitting.

I now have most of the forward fuselage assembly prepped and trial fitted!

Here's a side view of the control panel and sub panel bulkheads and reinforcements. Everything fits together nicely- all the holes line up (I must have been reading the instructions correctly today :-)

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Section: 33
Hours: 2

I finished up prepping parts for chapter 33. I'm going to hold off on priming until I get a new spray gun and the paint that I'm going to use for the cabin.

Section: 35
Hours: 4
I started work on prepping the upper forward fuselage parts. More drill, debur, polish, etc.


I fitted the cabin side rail top and started match drilling it in place. The fit seems to be very good so far.


Thursday, September 8, 2016

Section: 33
Hours: 5

I continued working on the rudder pedals. I finished up the other 3. Lots of heavy metal grinding and polishing today!

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Section: 33
Hours: 4

I worked on prepping the rudder pedal parts. Cutting, drilling, deburing, polishing, etc. Lots of holes to smooth out with the dremel tool. Here's the first one, three more to go.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Section: 32
Hours: 1

I riveted nut plates to the baggage floor parts first thing this morning.

Section: 30
Hours: 5

I spent the rest of the morning prepping for finishing the riveting between the tail and the fuselage. My friend Richard came over after lunch and helped me with the riveting. These rivets require a helper - my arms just aren't long enough to reach that far.

Many of the rivets we were able to back rivet. Richard expertly kept the large mushroom head bucking bar on all the rivet heads around the compound curves and I back riveted. It was nice to be able to tip the fuselage on it's side for these rivets.

The long backset stick made it easier to reach the corners inside the fuselage.

All the skins laid down nicely after riveting.

Four skins (and some bulkheads) come together in this corner. I had put in some extra work breaking edges on these skins and they all laid down nicely.

All the baggage ribs are now tied to the skins and bulkheads. The open rivet holes are for the baggage floors which will be going in soon.