Section: 27
Hours: 6

I riveted the nut plates, firewall angles, cover angle brackets and nose gear brackets to the tunnel sides. My plane doesn't have nose gear, but apparently the brackets are needed anyway.

Next I dimpled the left and right fire wall stainless panels and started riveting the angle braces on. I'm back riveting these using the rv-14 "special" bucking bar. It's long and narrow enough to fit around the structural dimpling in the stainless steel.

Section: 27
Hours: 6

I finished counter sinking and prepping the parts for the firewall assembly and then I washed and acid etched everything before lunch. By the time I started painting this afternoon it was well into the 90's. After priming the first couple parts the paint flow reduced. I stopped and cleaned the gun- when it is hot the epoxy flashes pretty quick and the nozzle sometimes gets plugged. When I went to start back up the flow was still low and then I noticed that the air compressor was not turned on. Duh~~~~

Section: 26
Hours: 2

Deb helped me rivet the baggage ribs to the bottom skin. I set the assembly on the floor so we could easily reach the rivets.

Looks like all the flush rivets came out flush.  Good job Deb!

Here's my side of the job.

Seat and baggage ribs are now attached to the bottom fuselage skin!

Section: 27
Hours:  6

I spent the rest of the day prepping parts for the firewall. The firewall has flush rivets throughout (except were marked on the plans) to make it easier to keep the engine side clean. All the reinforcing bars have to be counter sunk to accommodate the dimples in the stainless steel firewall bulkhead pieces. I did all the counter sinking on the drill press. I slowed the drill press down to the slowest setting and the counter sink cut nice and cleanly.

Section: 26
Hours: 3

This morning I finished up riveting the baggage ribs to the bulkhead. I used the long bent stick in the rivet gun to reach these rivets.

The routing angles get in the way for riveting the center ribs. It took some real finessing to set the rivets in the inboard ribs.

I set the assembly on end on blocks on the floor and clecoed the baggage ribs. Tomorrow I hope to get some help riveting them to the skin.

Section: 27
Hours: 3

This afternoon I pulled the parts for the firewall assembly and started work filing, deburring, counter sinking, etc.

Section: 26
Hours: 7.5

This morning Deb helped me rivet the fuselage bottom skin to the seat ribs. Easy work with two people but as Deb said "boring". Lots of rivets.

This afternoon I was presented with a bunch of difficult rivets. Here I'm using my thin titanium bar backed by a heavier bar to set some rivets in the side frame assembly.

The aft gear brace assembly gets pop riveted to the seat rib. It was really difficult to get the pop rivet gun on the bottom rivet. After trying out many positions on both sides of the rib, I was finally able to get a grip on the rivet by sliding the tool through the lightening hole of the outboard rib.

The power outlet bracket has rivets in the 4 corners that I was able to set using the squeezer. I had to use my inspection mirror to inspect the shop heads because they are hidden under the side flanges.

I riveted in the baggage area step assemblies and then clecoed in the middle baggage ribs with the seat belt lugs to finish off the day.

A nice detail is the seat belt lug brackets slide through holes in the bulkhead frame. I love the way all these parts fit together. Van's does an amazing job of engineering and manufacturing.

Section: 26
Hours: 5

I back riveted the gear brace assembly to the bottom skin and then mated the skin to the seat rib assembly. I was going to back rivet the skin to the seat ribs, but I discovered that wasn't really practical because of the slight curvature on the bottom of the ribs. I clecoed the assembly together and I'll get someone to help me rivet tomorrow.

I finished up today assembling the doublers and nut plates to the step attach ribs. The RV14 tail dragger version doesn't have a step, but you need these ribs to support the floor.

Section: 26
Hours: 5

I got back to riveting today. Nice change from P&P (prep and paint). Here's the seat belt attachment lugs. These few rivets are what will keep me in my seat in turbulence and acro flight (or other sudden delta v situations)!

The idler brackets require a 45 degree bend after you rivet in the nut plates. I used my duck bill pliers for this job. I drew a pencil line 1/4" in from the edge to guide placement of the pliers and made multiple passes to gradually bend the flange to the final set.

The bearing for the idler bracket needs to be trimmed so it doesn't protrude. I built a simple holder out of some scrap MDF board. First I layed out a center.

Then I drilled a hole with a 3/4" wood spade bit. I inserted the bearing, traced around it with a pencil and then layed out the trim line.

I pinned the bearing to the holder using a cleco and then ran the assembly through my bandsaw. The drawing in the manual shows the trim line running just below the top hole, my line ended up a little short of trimming off the top hole, so I adjusted the fence in a little and made a second pass to clean up the edge just even with the top hole.

Here's the assembled idler bracket.

I used the rivet gun to set the rivets for attaching the idler bracket to the bulkhead.

I back riveted doublers and some stiffeners to the fuselage bottom skin. The plans called out for some
AN460AD4-4.5 length rivets but none that length were included in the kit, so I used some 5 length rivets. It was a little difficult getting them to shoot without leaning over, but after a couple retries I adjusted the air pressure and got ok results.

The last project for the day was assembling the gear brace assembly and seat rib angles. The angles are supposed to be 90 degrees to the brace. You partially set the upper rivet, adjust the angle and then clamp and shoot the other rivets. I initially used a cleco for clamping, but the angle moved when I squeezed the rivet. I drilled out the rivet, reset the alignment and then clamped using a cleco clamp and was then able to squeeze the rivets without the angle moving.