Now that I've rolled the canoe, I think I'm about where you'd start if building a quick-build version. It's exciting because it's starting to really look like something that will fly. I'm also really excited about getting close to the end of the major metal-working phase and starting to think a lot about the avionics, electical, fuel, motors and other systems.
This page including parts from the forward fuselage all the way to the tail. Basically most of the rest of the fuselage metal work will be covered in this page, plus anything else I happen to work on. One thing you might notice is I'm doing a bunch of work out of order from Van's manual. This is more to make sure I get certain things done before winter, allowing me to get my car inside again (I hope) and also to avoid the need to sand fiberglass parts in a closed garage.
Total Construction Time: 94 hours
July 20, 2007 (1 hour)
Haven't done a lot on the plane since rolling the canoe last Sunday. With the fuselage on top of my sawhorses, it's too high to work on. I made up a simple support frame out of 2x6's that's 11" high, bringing the longeron to a 36" height. I also cut down the legs of one of my sawhorses so it's 23" high to support the rear of the plane. Also riveted the F-722 and F-724 aft fuselage bulkheads, which are on each side of the baggage area, to the side skins.
July 21, 2007 (6 hours)
Today I finished up some of the skin rivets I hadn't bucked to the rear bulkheads. Then I made a new F-711D angle because I had accidentally notched it when I was match drilling skins a while ago. I also fabricated the F-710C and F-711E spacers that sit on top of a couple of the rear bulkheads under the aft deck. Next I positioned the aft deck to get it perfectly level and drilled it to the longerons and bulkheads. Once that's drilled in place the whole rear section of the plane becomes very rigid, so you don't want to lock in a twist now. Back at the front of the plane I slightly modified the replacement F-695 gussets to get a perfect fit between the longeron and firewall angles, then drilled them. Finally, back at the mid-section I positioned the F-757S plates and drilled them to the longerons.
July 22, 2007 (4 hours)
I started out this morning thinking I was just going to do a few miscellaneous tasks. I drilled the aft seat belt attachment brackets to the longerons, which are way back in the rear of the fuselage. Next I pulled out the four angle brackets that attach between the F-706 and F-707 bulkheads to the longerons. Before I drilled them I pulled out the two upper J-stiffeners that I had cut to length quite a while ago. I had to modify each end a little to get them to fit. Next I realized it was time to attach the F-709 bulkhead and the top skins, so I went ahead and did that. I ended up unfastening the forward top skin to pull out the J-stiffeners because they needed to be cut back a little more.
July 28, 2007 (4 hours)
We got back from Oshkosh late last night. We had a great time, especially at the RV Family Reunion BBQ Wednesday night put on by Bob Collins. It was really fun meeting all the other RV builders and flyers. Of course, I came home from Oshkosh with a bunch of stuff too, including a couple of comm antennas, a reamer for the rear spar holes, a hidden hinge for the oil door in the cowl, small fairings for over the rudder cable hole in the aft fuselage and other stuff as well. I also saw the latest EFIS screens from both AFS and GRT; this is going to be a tough decision.
Today I match drilled the rivet holes in the aft top skins and J-stiffener angles. I also finished up the rivets at the bottom center of the F-706 bulkhead where the baggage ribs on each side of the tunnel connect. These are in a tough position to buck, and I'm going to take a closer look once I get inside the fuselage, but I think I did okay. I also drilled the little clip angle that attaches at the top of the F-707 bulkhead.
Next I decided to install the F-6111 braces that reinforce the skin along each side of the baggage area. The book tells you to see a drawing that doesn't come until you get the finish kit, so you're a little on your own. These are a little tricky to get positioned and drilled. You need to do a lot of trimming to the flanges to get them to fit, which is a trial and error process. I started from the bottom worked my way up. As I got close to the top I had to repeatedly mark the pieces, remove them and trim or file, then reposition until they fit. I decided to trim the flange flush with the edge of the F-706 bulkhead, skipping the overlap on the bulkhead flange. With the interference caused by the fluting of the bulkhead, it didn't look like this was going to add any strength anyways and I saw where other builders did it this way.
July 29, 2007 (2 hours)
Today I drilled the steps to the sides of the fuselage and also mounted the plastic blocks that attach to the baggage rib. After a few more whacks with my heavy rubber mallet, the step mounting plates fit really nice to the skins.
July 31, 2007 (1 hour)
I bought a set of 5 point Hooker Harnesses from another builder, so this morning I mounted the fifth point brackets between the seat ribs and drilled them. The Hookers need a wider spacing than Van's fifth point harness, and also a smaller bolt.
August 1, 2007 (1 hour)
In the morning I drilled the holes through the seat pans into the tops of the brackets for the #8 screws, then took it apart and drilled the holes for the nutplates. Later in the evening I spend a little time match drilling the rear wall of the baggage compartment to the bulkhead.
August 2, 2007 (2 hours)
This evening I marked and cut the radius corners of the upper baggage compartment wall. I then measured, punched and drilled where the screw holes go. (Note to self, when measuring and marking on the back of a piece you need to reverse the layout - now what can I use two extra holes for?). Then I positioned the piece against the bulkhead and other baggage wall and match drilled the holes. I also trimmed the radius corners for the plates at attach the F-705 bulkhead to the longerons.
August 3, 2007 (1 hour)
Today I realized that I had positioned the rear baggage wall about 3/16" too high when I drilled it. This was because I measured the 5/8" overlap of the two sections at the wrong spot. I should have used the outside edge of the lower section, which is trimmed, instead of the center area where the wall has a flange bent towards the aft. Decided to order replacements because the holes in the bottom section have inadequate edge distances at the screw holes. I'll hove to adjust the new holes along the top as well because the holes in the bulkhead I drilled are now off as well.
August 4, 2007 (7 hours)
Today I started deburring and dimpling all the parts I've been working on for the last couple of weeks. I got most of it done except for the aft deck and top skins. I was in and out of the garage a lot as well as doing other things, so 7 hours is a complete guess for time spent on the plane.
August 5, 2007 (3 hours)
Finished deburring and dimpling the skins and the pile of other parts that are ready for priming.
August 12, 2007 (4 hours)
After spending a bunch of days up North at Boy Scout Camp with my two sons, I'm home and back at it. Today I cleaned and primed all the parts I have ready.
August 13, 2007 (2 hours)
Spent an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening riveting various parts. This includes the firewall to longeron gussets, miscellaneous rivets in the area of the elevator bellcrank, and the two angles that cap a couple of the rear bulkheads.
August 14, 2007 (2 hours)
Riveted the aft deck to the rear fuselage. Also dimpled the aft bulkheads and cleco'ed a few parts in prep for riveting.
August 15, 2007 (1 hour)
Positioned the 5th point harness brackets and drilled the holes through the seat ribs. This is an ackward area to drill.
August 16, 2007 (1 hour)
Riveted the platenuts to the tops of the seat belt brackets, then blind riveted the brackets to the seat ribs.
In the evening Phil Kaye, another -9A builder from Ottawa, happened to be in Minneapolis. Pete Howell took him up for a ride while Bob Collins and I had a chance to check out Mike Johnson's just delivered -8A QB kit at his hangar. Afterwards Phil and Bob came up to my house to see my project. The weather was absolutely perfect for a fun RV filled evening.
August 18, 2007 (6 hours)
Decided to finally try and get a lot of the miscellaneous parts laying around installed. I riveted the F-709 bulkhead to the aft deck, then the F-656 gusset plates to the other bulkheads and longerons. I had missed a hole in a bulkhead for the static line, so I drilled that and then put snap bushings in all the static and rudder cable holes. I also riveted the rudder pedal brace to the firewall angle. Next I put the spar spacer in between the two spar carry through sections and also bolted the control column mounts in place. Finally I decided to make the brake pedal assemblies, which are now mostly done.
August 20, 2007
Yesterday I worked on the flap and aileron attach brackets and gap fairings, which I documented on those pages. I want to get these done so I can get to work on my fiberglass wingtips soon.
Gary Specketer, my tech counselor, came by tonight to check out my project. It's always fun to talk RV's. It sounds like his RV-10 panel is coming along nicely.
September 5, 2007 (2 hours)
After finishing up the flaps and ailerons I'm back to working on the fuselage. Well, not really. I want to get the fiberglass empennage and wing tips done so I can work on my electrical over the winter. So today I installed the rod end bearings in the horizontal and vertical stabilizers.
September 6, 2007 (3 hours)
Shortly after I got the aileron pushrods back from the welder I realized I miscalculated and made them too long. I ordered a couple of new end inserts, cut the old ones off one end, and then riveted the new ones on to get the right length. The welds really only help where the rods pass through the rear wing spar, so the rivets at the bellcrank end is no big deal. Lots of people report problems setting these rivets, but I filed them down to an -11 length and they set fine with my hand squeezer. I also filed the trailing edge of one of the elevators where the AEX wedge was still sticking out.
September 7, 2007 (1 hour)
Didn't have a lot of time in the morning but I did mount the elevators to the horizontal stabilizer.
September 8, 2007 (8 hours)
It was a perfect day outside so I got a good start fitting and drilling the fiberglass empennage tips. I picked up a diamond coated dremel cutting wheel that made easy work of cutting. The only one I haven't finished yet is the rudder bottom, mainly because it's best to have it mounted so you can line the bottom up with the bottom of the fuselage.
I also got a good start mounting the horizontal stabilizer to the aft deck. Van's instructions direct you to drill through the attachment angles in the aft deck and longerons, then add a spacer between. I decided it made more sense to have the spacer in place, plus the rear spar at the right height, before I did any drilling. The drill bit wobbled a bit for the outer two holes, so I'm thinking about drilling the holes larger for an AN4 bolt.
September 9, 2007 (6 hours)
I couldn't sleep early this morning so I finally popped out in the garage around 3:30 am. I studied my two oversized holes for a bit. Then I decided I might as well get something productive done so I marked and drilled the rear horizontal stabilizer to the two vertical bars.
After church I decided it was time to mount the vertical stabilizer. First I had to make the elevator stop angle, another piece with strange angle cuts at each end. I then drilled and bolted it to the aft deck. Then I positioned the vertical stabilizer. Once I had the rear spar at the right height and the stabilizer perfectly vertical, I drilled the two bolt holes into the elevator stop angle. The next step is to set the front of the stabilizer at the right height, which you check by making sure the three rear rudder brackets are perfectly inline. This took me a long time because I didn't realize the bottom of the rear spar of the VS was sticking out about a 1/4" from the rear bulkhead. Once I closed this gap, everything lined up just fine.
September 10, 2007 (2 hours)
I made up a 0.031" spacer to sandwich between the front spar of the vertical stabilizer and the vertical plate that also attaches to the aft deck and front spar of the horizontal stabilizer. This thickness allowed that plate to ride up slightly over the flange of the bottom rib of the vertical stabilizer. Then I drilled all but the top row of holes because I couldn't get in there with it mounted to the fuselage. I also started trying to cut foam insulation pieces to close off the ends of the empennage tips.
September 11, 2007 (2 hours)
Tonight I cut and fitted foam blocks into the backs of the horizontal and vertical stabilizer tips. Then I went ahead and added the aileron bellcrank and pushrod to the left wing and attached it to the ailerons. Then I adjusted the pushrod until I got the trailing edge of the aileron lined up just right.
September 16, 2007 (4 hours)
Before church I cut the rudder bottom to size and drilled it to the rudder. This is a little tricky to get just right, but it came out quite nice. Later I decided it was finally time to try fiberglassing the open ends of the stabilizer tips. This ended up to be quite a bit easier than I expected. The main problem I had was that I left a pretty small lip along the sides and getting the cloth to stay tight to that corner took a while. Later I picked up a new bandsaw blade so I could cut the radius corners off the top baggage wall section. Then I drilled and cut for the two slots where the seat belt cables come through.
September 17, 2007 (1 hour)
In the morning before work I installed the short aileron pushrod in the right wing and then adjusted it to get the trailing edge of the aileron aligned properly. In the picture you can see the pushrod attached to the aileron bellcrank. The plate with the blue plastic is a temporary piece that will help hold the bellcrank in it's center position while you align the ailerons. After work I popped out for a brief time and trimmed the excess fiberglass from the three tips that I glassed on Sunday. They came out pretty good, especially for someone who never worked with it.
September 21, 2007 (1 hour)
Spent a lot of my spare time this week working on stuff related to the flying club I belong to, so I hardly touched the plane. Tonight I popped out into garage and added a few strips of fiberglass to the insides of the stabilizer tips, which didn't take too long. I may add one more strip on each side once these set up.
September 22, 2007 (1 hour)
The epoxy from last night wasn't tacky, so I decided to try my hand at mixing up some epoxy and micro balloons as a filler for the rear side of the tips. Having never worked with it before, I kept adding more and more to the epoxy and pretty soon I had a nice stiff mixture that I could apply with a putty knife without it running. I overfilled the tips a bit so I could sand them to the final shape to minimize the gap between the tips and the rudder and elevator counterbalance arms.
During the early afternoon the whole family went to the VAF - MN Wing Annual Picnic. We had lot of fun talking with other RV'ers and looking at planes. The weather couldn't have been more perfect for the picnic.
September 23, 2007 (6 hours)
I decided to install the wingtips today. I noticed that the edges were flared out a little, which I've heard can happen if you store them open end down. I tried heating them up with a heat gun and reshaping them, but I think I only made them worse. I decided to switch over to sanding the filler in the stabilizer tips. I found that I had added quite a bit more than I needed, so I ended up using my dremel and also a palm sander to take as much as a 1/4" of filler back off. Less weight so I didn't mind. They came out pretty good, although I have a little additional sanding and maybe some filling to do yet. Finally I got back to the wingtips, trimmed them to fit, and then drilled the holes. I started with the trailing edges aligned with the aileron, but ended up about 1/4" off by the time I was done with one, less with the other. The instructions say you can reposition a little once you drill the holes to final size.
September 24, 2007 (1 hour)
Drilled the wingtip holes to #27 for the #6 screws I plan to use. I was able to adjust the alignment of the trailing edges when I drilled the holes larger so they are in pretty good alignment with the aileron trailing edges.
September 25, 2007 (1 hour)
Fabricated and drilled the two rudder stops.
September 26, 2007 (1 hour)
Cut the two elevator pushtubes to length before work then in the evening coated the insides with paint. Figure I need to get the tail all finished up this weekend so I can get my garage rearranged back how it was so I can see if I can get my car in. I don't like scraping frost off the windows in the morning, which will be quite common in the coming weeks.
September 28, 2007 (1 hour)
Inserted the rod ends into the two pushtubes, drilled the rivet holes, then fastened with blind rivets. Like the elevator pushrods, I dipped the rivets in primer before I installed them, a tip I saw on another builder's site.
September 29, 2007 (1 hour)
Still have a little work finishing up the empennage attachment to the fuselage which I want to get done this weekend. First I removed the elevators and rudder so I could get better access to the rear of the fuselage. Next I drilled the hole for the tie down to 5/8". When I was making the rear bulkhead I had cut and primed the tie-down bar, and drilled and dimpled the rivet holes in the bulkhead and tie-down. I used my angle drill to drill #30 holes through the existing holes in the rear bulkkhead through the rear spar of the vertical stabilizer. Next I took the vertical stabilizer off, positioned the tie down bar to the rear bulkhead, and riveted it. With the stabilizer off, I had a chance to also drill the last four holes in the forward spar to attachment bracket now that had better access. Then the stabilizer went back on and I enlarged the four bolt holes through the rear spar, bulkhead and tie down bar.
September 30, 2007 (4 hours)
Today I decided I would finish up all the remaining tasks associated with mounting the empennage. I started by hanging the rudder on the vertical stabilizer and noticed that the holes in the threaded rods didn't all align with the mounting brackets. With the top and middle bolts in, I could see that the bottom was misaligned by about half the AN3 hole width. I was able to flex things enough to get the bottom bolt in, but could feel a slight bit of binding. When I added the bolts from the rudder rear spar to the rear bulkhead it must have pulled the rear spar and bracket forward. I dropped a fishing line through the three brackets and the holes were perfectly aligned, so I adjusted the rod end bearings on the rudder until it all fit just right.
With that done I decided to check the rudder travel to make sure it swung the full 35 degrees. I found that the rudder skin was rubbing a little on the vertical stabilizer skins when fully deflected, and there was still about an 1/8" gap to the rudder stops. I did a little more adjusting of the rod end bearings and also slightly bent the trailing edges of the vertical stabilizer skins. This finally allowed the required rudder travel, but I was still not hitting the stops. I finally decided to make new stops, leaving an extra 1/8" which I planned to file a bit at a time to get the needed travel. It turned out very little filing was needed, so I went ahead and shot some primer on the fuselage skins and back side of the rudder stops, then riveted them in place.
Off came both the rudder and vertical stabilizer, and I drilled a couple of holes in the bracket that gets bolted to the aft deck at the front spar. With that done, I decided to finally drill the two holes in the elevator bellcranks where the pushrod attaches. I took the vertical stabilizer and elevators off the fuselage and put them on my workbench. I then followed Van's steps to drill these holes, making sure they ended up perfectly in-line with one another. I finished up by taking all the empennage parts and putting them back up on the shelves in the garage.