May 2, 2011

I unpacked the fuselage kit and did a careful inventory. Turned out to be missing two small parts. Van's will ship them to me. I had to find places for all the new parts. The holding rack I built above the wing stand came in as handy as I expected. Flat skins first, then the items of bulk.

Here are a few of the larger pieces, mostly the aft upper and lower fuselage skins, plus a few longer or heavier parts stored with them.

The hefty bag of hardware that comes with the fuselage kit. Seems imposing at first but logically organized by Van's and fairly easy to inventory. I sorted it all out after the inventory and will come back to it later to disburse into workbench friendly organization at a bit later time.

June 13, 2011

I spent a bit of time and located all the firewall parts from the stacks of parts scattered in my garage...hangar. Found them all. I wasn't going to dive into the firewall but it turned out I did...did the prep work on the firewall structure with edge finishing.

Then I went after the stainless steel firewall itself. I used the Dremel tool and a cutoff wheel to do the edge finishing on the firewall. A bit tedious but not too bad.

I then clecoed the firewall parts together and match drilled all the many holes. My original hope was to use up my old #30 and #40 drills on the hard stainless but in the end I had to break out some new drill bits to make the drilling work. I used my electric drill and a bunch of Boelube for the drilling, allowing slower RPM on the drill and some good lubrication. Worked out fine.

Took it all apart and then dimpled the firewall. So, as I finished up my weekend, the firewall prep work is nearing completion. I need to deburr and then countersink the structural parts that attach to the firewall, then clean and prime them before starting the riveting process. More to come...

June 28, 2011

Made some progress in the past two weeks on the fuselage. Took a wrong turn or two during the process but am coming back on track.

Picking up on the firewall, here is the assembled firewall clecoed and prepped for riveting.

And the back of the firewall. I decided to hold the priming process until I decided about the priming I would use in the fuselage. But, I finished everything up to that point.

So, I jumped on to the forward fuselage floor. Fairly straightforward assembly. This it the underside of the floor. The cross-way structure will soon enough support the landing gear boxes in the forward cockpit that are mounted to the floor. Did the match drilling and the skin prep, again holding at the point of priming.

As part of that assembly, I also prepped the cooling ramp. I've looked at the plans for awhile and still not sure what the cooling ramp is going to do, but here I am trimming the ramp assembly for the prep work. It eventually will be riveted to the underside of the forward floor assembly.

And, with that completed and awaiting priming, I moved on to the landing gear boxes. These are pretty complex and important parts. Here they are laid out on the workbench after taking an hour to find them in the "warehouse."

Not sure how useful this photo is, but here is what the aim is in putting these landing gear box structures together.

And here is the left box clecoed together. The plate with the three holes in it covers the interior of the box structure. One gains access through the covers to the landing gear bolts and the wiring and other things that are routed through the boxes someday. Some guys choose to open up two of the holes to allow better access to the interior. I'm one of those guys.

A bit puzzled by how this part arrived. This photo shows what appears to be a misdrilled hole on one of the supports in the box. Bummer. I looked at this for awhile and tried to match it on the plans. Nope. So I could either ask for a new part or buy a new part or make this one work. I smoothed out the hole and made it look quite nice. Think it will work. Okay then.

Here are the two box structures put together and awaiting the finishing work. Kind of fun to be working on the fuselage.

Like I said, one needs to read the instructions carefully because these assemblies are complex. Circled here is one rivet hole that needs to be countersunk because it will take a flush rivet because later on a cross brace will fit over this. The rest of the rivets are universal here.

The right side box has a bunch of nut plates mounted that will eventually accept part of the baggage compartment assembly, so those need to be drilled and countersunk in preparation for flush rivets here also.

And, then, take it all apart for edge finishing and deburring and, soon enough, priming.

Ah, the priming. You really come to a decision point right about here in the fuselage construction because some of the finishing work starts here. So, what color is my interior going to be. I had toyed with the lighter gray to match the Van's powdercoated parts, but after further consideration was tending toward using green AKZO primer as the finish for the interior. Somewhat attractive to me because the RV-8 will have a bit of military airplane feel to it when I'm done, if I have anything to say about it, and I guess I do. So, that was what I decided. Bought the AKZO two part epoxy primer from Aircraft Spruce and an inexpensive primer gun. Haven't really used a paint gun before but it seemed to work out pretty well. Here are a bunch of the parts after priming in my paint facillty and set aside in the drying booth. There's an art to spraying this stuff but this will work and I'll get better at it. Pretty easy to use...mix equal parts and spray on. Not cheap, but the two gallons I bought (one gallon of each part) should do the fuselage interior. I hope.

Let me mention my little detour in case anybody actually reads this for some insight. At this point there are eight weldments I'm working with...steel parts welded together and finished in that light gray Van's sorta powerdcoat. I think this powdercoat is really just thick paint applied well to these parts. So, there are four engine mount weldments and two weldments that go into each landing gear box. I had read online about some guys stripping the powdercoat and priming to match the other parts, more for aesthetics, I guess. An alternative is to scuff up the finish and prime over which, it turns out, is the best way to do it. I opted to scuff and prime the engine mounts and try stripping the landing gear box weldments. Big mistake...should not have done it. To read some sites, this stuff is easy to strip using MEK or Jasco paint stripper or gasket remover. Trust me...this stuff is not easy to remove using any and all of the above. I resorted to some expert help and a bit of bead blasting to clean these parts up for priming. Added a bunch of hours to the process that I did not need to, all for aesthetics. If I got in my time machine and moved back a week...these parts would all stay the very nicely finished Van's light gray. A word from the just a bit wiser from making a poor decision.

And no photos...too much paint stripper flying around, I guess. Anyways, as I write this, those four weldments are ready for priming, I need to wet sand and respray the forward fuselage floor as I wasn't happy with the final finish that I sprayed last weekend, and then I have a bunch of riveting to do. Starting next weekend, the fuselage will start being a fuselage.

July 12, 2011

On vacation for the past week and was able to spend a couple of good sessions on the RV-8. At the end of the week I had a the forward framework of the fuselage basically assembled. Looks good and gives an idea of what's coming.

Picking up from where I had stopped last time, I continued assembly work on the firewall. After doing the riveting of the frame to the stainless steel firewall itself, I riveted the numerous nutplates to the framework. The plans specify to rivet these plates before assembly but I've found a few builders who advised to reverse the process. This makes sense because the nutplates in position would make the riveting of the firewall more difficult.

Here is the assembled firewall from one side...ready to go.

And the other side...where the engine will actually be mounted. Cool. Just need an engine...

And once the preparatory work is done, the assembly goes pretty quickly. Here is the forward floor assembly riveted together. the forward frame (on the right) is not yet riveted to the floor...to be done later.

Back to the landing gear boxes, here are the modified facing plates with the enlarged access holes mostly drilled and ready.

And while waiting for some other stuff, I jumped ahead to the next assembly sequence...the forward baggage area structure, to start the preparatory work. Here are the two aft bulkhead panels (two pieces), the floor of the baggage compartment, and the side panel ready to start.

I wanted to do what many others have done...add a hinged panel to allow access to the rear of the instrument panel. One has to cut up the upper bulkhead section to do this...to make the opening, then add a doubler reinforcement panel, and add the door panel and hinge. Here I am mocking it up in my mind and on the panel. Just make sure it will all go together, then make sure again before cutting anything.

Laying out the lines to cut the upper bulkhead panel apart. Took it a few tries.

Took a deep breath and used some snips to cut the panel. A structural support for the baggage door hinge will attach at the top, thus the area retained at the top of the cut out.

I took advantage of some good tooling availability and did rough cuts on the door panel and doubler plates. Here is the doubler clecoed to the bulkhead panel and marked for cutting the opening in the doubler.

Back to the landing bear boxes, Nathan riveted the nutplates to the facing panels in preparation of assembling the boxes.

Riveting the boxes together. Note that the weldment plates were stripped and repainted with the AKZO two part enamel...not the wisest decision on my part but it worked out okay.

And here go the landing gear boxes onto the forward floor structure. The two gray brackets on the boxes are for the aft cockpit rudder pedal add ons. I had read somewhere that these brackets had to be added here and it is much easier to do now than later.

And here is the forward fuselage structure with the baggage area structure and the firewall clecoed into position.

So, moving forward with some vigor. Next up is to complete the process of attaching the firewall to the floor structure (just a dozen plus rivets at this point). Also, I need to finish the assembly work on the instrument panel access panel and the landing gear box access covers. Once these clean up items are completed, I move on to construct the center section. Keep on keeping on.

July 18, 2011

During the last part of my vacation I continued to press ahead, taking advantage of a couple of good sessions to primarily work on the center section and my modified bulkhead access door.

I laid out the center section that is actually two similar structures that are bolted together and eventually will receive the wing spars. Here is one of the two structures, primarily consisting of a center spar section and two bulkhead parts.

After doing the match drilling, the nut plate drilling, the deburring, and the edge finishing, it was out the paint shop which is really a corner of the hangar which is really just my garage...

There are other parts here being primed...those for the bulkhead and bulkhead access door...but more on that later.

Okay, once all the priming was completed, I had enough time to rivet together the bulkhead access door parts. First, the fabricated doubler was riveted to the bulkhead, and then the seven nut plates were riveted to the bulkhead-doubler assembly, and then the hinge was riveted to the access door. After that, the door was positioned so the other half of the hinge could be match drilled for eventual riveting. Fini...done and it worked out just fine.

The hinged access panel opened up.

And, the bulkhead (actually a two part piece) clecoed into position with the access door installed on the top half of the bulkhead. Firewall is to the right.

And opened up. Eventually, this access panel will allow access to the back of the instrument panel from behind; otherwise, the panel would have to be unscrewed from the its mounting plates to allow the back of the panel to be exposed.

And, after looking at this, I realized I will need to notch the door at several places to allow the stringer structure to be installed later. Should be simple enough to do. I'll take a closer look at what needs to be done here and proceed accordingly.

So here is where we ended the week's worth of work.

Next session I hope to rivet together the center section assembly.

July 25, 2011

Only got two work sessions in the last week, one was somewhat counter-productive but the second was a long and productive one. Moving forward on the center section and then dove into the mid-fuselage floor structure.

I started the first session by riveting the center bulkheads together. In the process, I somehow reversed the orientation of two of the bulkhead parts. So, I started the second session on Saturday by correcting the riveting error. Okay, I had to drill out twenty-six rivets. Then, re-rivet twenty-six rivets. Took about an hour. Turned out okay, though.

So here is the center section bulkhead being assembled with rivets and bolts. It went together pretty quickly and without any other (major) errors.

I then began work on the seat rib assembly, which is really the mid fuselage floor structure. As part of that process, I was supposed to modify two of the ribs to allow for the electric aileron trim. According to the plans, holes have to be opened up to accept the gizmo that makes the electric aileron trim work. I clecoed the floor ribs to the completed center section to make some measurements. Lo and behold, the holes are already there, as are some pre-drilled holes to use to match drill the parts to be attached. Old plans; new Van's enhancements; much easier on me.

Here is one of the electric aileron boxes clecoed and final drilled into place. Much easier than using my Dremel to make a hole, then a jig to correctly place the holes to be drilled. Save about 90% of the work on these two little parts.

After clecoing and match drilling the mid floor assembly, I had to attach it to the center section that is temporarily attached to the forward fuselage section. Had to. Cool. The next step is to fit the lower skins to the assembly and then match drill.

And another view from the side of what is being wrought in my garage.

I had spent some time looking ahead and was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of work needed to build the fuselage. However, I grounded myself a bit...one step at a time. That will get it built.

August 8, 2011

Over the past two weeks I worked primarily on what is called the seat ribs but is really the mid fuselage floor. Here is the assembly clecoed together with the bottom side up, the bottom side being the external fuselage belly skin.,

After match drilling, edge finishing, and deburring, here is the skin being dimpled for the later flush rivets.

I had to come back to this step a bit later: adding two #12 holes in the rear wing spar carry through. Here is the set up before I went to find a drill press. Note the spacer under the C-clamp between the two spar parts. This spacer will get cut down once the drilling is done, and someday the aft wing spar will slide into the opening between the two spar parts.

Off to the paint facility for the parts to receive their own personal copy of the two part epoxy paint which, but the way, I have found to be all that was promised: durable, relatively easy to mix and apply, and just what I wanted for the interior.

Here is the seat rib assembly coming together, with the two inner seat ribs receiving the seat belt attachment fittings. The riveted pieces on the interior of the ribs is for the electric aileron trim.

And the rib assembly pretty much assembled except for the skin.

Nathan and I riveted the skins on during a Saturday morning session. It really takes two people to do this due to the way the ribs are set up, unless you have gorilla arms.

Here I've laid the seat rib assembly aft of the center section bulkhead that is temporarily attached to the forward fuselage. Get some persepctive here. The added ribs in the assembly are only clecoed into position right now. Riveted later.

Tried my hand at longeron bending. Van's is all very precise in the plans on the angle of the twists and bends. I worked for quite a while and decided the point was for a good fit on the foward fuselage.

It does. Here is the lower longeron and the auxilliary longeron clamped into position on the right side of the fuselage. Good to go, after a bit of parts preparation.

And that's where it is now. A couple of things I'll add. I noted on one website that the bolts used in the forward center section bulkhead are too short in the plans, which call for AN4-11A. It turns out no threads are showing after the nuts are added and torqued; the guidance says one to three threads from the bolt should show. So, I will replace the five bolts with AN4-12A bolts when I get some. Also, I have decided to take another look at the nuts and bolts in the bulkhead assembly. I think I may need to add some washers to reduce the number of threads showing on some bolts. I have learned a lesson. The aim is not just to blindly follow the plans but also meet the basic standard which, in this case, is a bit different from the plans. Okay then.

August 21, 2011

When I last updated, I had some questions about bolt size for the six bolts that hold together one of the center bulkheads. I had initally decided to replace the AN4-11A bolts with the slightly longer AN4-12A bolts and, in fact, did so for several of the bolts. However, those bolts are actually a bit long and require two washers to allow the threads to grip properly. I took another look at the -11A bolts and saw that the threads protruded from the nut just a bit, so even though it is not one full thread exposed, I spoke with an A&P and he noted the main thing was that all the threads were engaged and you were not tightening down on the bolt shank instead of the material. Good enough; the AN4-11A bolts remain installed.

So, two weeks later and now the forward fuselage is clecoed together. Cool; no other words can describe it.

I started these last sessions working with the forward section lower and auxiliary longerons. Week ago Saturday Nathan and I match drilled the holes from the floor into the lower longeron, which included primarily #30 holes but also a number of bolt holes.

Here is the section ready for drilling.

And here are two bolts temporarily installed between the lower longeron and the engine mount flange.

After that drilling was completed, I turned my attention to the mid fuselage and getting it ready to attach to the forward fuselage. The rear bulkhead (F-807)is added and then the skins are prepped and then clecoed into position with some internal structure.

Both aft lower sections of the fuselage skin have to be rolled to join the belly skin. It looked to be a bigger deal than it was. Following the directions proved to work just fine. here is one of the skins clamped with two pieces of 3/4 inch angle and held in position with a beveled 2x4 clamped to the workbench. A bit of patience results in a nice bend.

So here is the left skin clecoed into position. You can't see it real well but the skin bend done in the prior step is on the aft lower side of the fuselage section.

I had to wait a few days to get the right skin section attached. A rib and the skin itself need a 2 5/8" hole drilled to allow a fresh air vent hose access from the right wing to the rear cockpit. The instructions say to use a fly cutter; I demurred and used a 2 5/8" hole saw instead which worked just fine on a drill press.

Here is the left side of the mid fuselage with the internal structure clecoed into position.

And, a few days later with the right skin clecoed into position.

This past Saturday, Nathan and I fitted the mid fuselage section to the forward fuselage section. Takes a bit of patience and access into the inside gets more difficult the further you go. The forward skins will be added next. As every web site that documents this construction notes, "It is starting to look like an airplane." Ditto.

And, the forward and fuselage sections clecoed and ready for the next step.

The next step? Well, we are moving right into the aft fuselage section. Here are the two most aft bulkheads being prepped and drilled. Between the two bulkheads is the tail wheel weldment. Tail wheel?? Well, isn't that just kind of neat?

So, we do all the aft fuselage bulkhead prep, then the skin and longerons, and the baggage compartment ribs. Cleco all that together and eventually, join that section to the forward fuselage. Then match drill it all, about a zillion holes, then take everything apart again. Next time.

September 6, 2011

I've made some serious visual progress over the past few weeks as the basic fuselage comes together in the cleco stage. It is impressive to see the fuselage as it is will someday be, probably not that far off. So, the aft fuselage is assembled to the forward section in three basic components: the two side skins and the belly skin, which is actually in two sections. Not as many photos for this work just because it has been moving fast and I'd rather get some stuff done than take photos.

However, here is the aft part of the aft fuselage as it came together. I had some trouble adding the small piece of the aft belly skin to the side sections. I worked with it a bit and finally got it to fit properly.

And here is the fuselage with the aft side skins clecoed in position but without the major part of the aft belly skin. The fuselage is still nose heavy in this condition and will sit on the workbench, but I threw some ballast in the forward area anyways just to make sure.

Another view of the aft belly skin clecoed into position. The pre-punched hole sections have to make this whole process so much easier.

The process of adding the larger piece of the aft belly skin was done solo by me, and I used this strap to help hold the skin roughly in position as I worked it to where it needed to be. Fairly straightforward if a bit time consuming.

And the basic structure of the entire fuselage clecoed together in preparation for all the match drilling.

Here is a view of the forward left side of the fuselage as I was drilling the lower and auxiliary longerons into position. Nothing unusual to report here...just drilling through some steel longerons and trying to drill squarely to the skin for the best alignment. Both 3/32 inch and 1/8 inch rivets are used here.

I still had to bend the upper longerons and fit them into position. This proved to be relatively easy and they seemed to fit pretty well. I was concerned about the side skins not laying very flat against the longerons...a bit too much skin along here and I thought I might have some waviness. However, later when I drilled the skins along here it seemed to flatten out just fine.

Here is Nathan intently drilling the upper longerons to the top right side engine mount. I had taken a look at how the upper longerons fit between the two sections of the engine mount. It seemed the longeron would have gaps between the two sections, but on closer examination it was evident that everything snugged up quite well. Lots of holes here, and much drilling through two steel sections and one aluminum section.

Here is the result of the drilling of these sections.

Moved back from these holes and drilled the side holes in the forward skins through the skins to the upper longerons.

Here are the forward skins completely drilled and cleoced in positions. The upper aft bulkhead sections have been added because the upper skin will be put into position shortly to square up the aft fuselage for drilling.

So, it is moving along slowly but steadily. I hope to have the fuselage match drilled in the next week or two and then move on tho the next prepartory step.

September 19, 2011

Spent the last two weeks working on the fuselage assembly to get it ready to take back apart for the finishing work. Much of this is detail work to fit smaller parts into the greater scheme.

Among those items, the plans called for me to add the rear fuselage upper bulkhead parts and then cleco on the upper skin. All this to square up the fuselage for the final drilling of the aft deck assembly and the tail wheel spring mount.

So, here is the fuselage with the upper skin clecoed into position. This thing looks cooler and cooler; what else can I say?

And then the aft deck is assembled and drilled. The upper longerons are marked for later trimming. This upper deck was a bit tricky to make sure all the parts were where they were supposed to be before drilling.

After the aft deck was done I was supposed to move the fuselage onto sawhorses and drill the belly skins to the center section flanges. That had to wait a few days until my muscle help arrived.

Meanwhile, I drilled the cockpit rails to the upper longerons. This went okay; I proceeded slowly and am pretty happy with how the edge of the rails lies along the upper longeron vertex. A picture would tell a thousand words here, but I neglected to take any photos.

Next, I used these ratchet tie downs to pull the longerons in to match the upper flange of the landing gear boxes for drilling of five or six 1/8 holes for rivets. Two straps seemed to work better for me as it held it evenly fore and aft. The yellow box is, not surprisingly, ballast to keep the fuselage on the workbench. It would appear that it would stay there on its own but I'm not looking for any additional "challenges."

Then, I had to attach the WD-808 seat brace in the mid fuselage. This backs up the pilot's seat and provides a mount for stuff for the rear seat passenger position (i.e. moving map display). The instructions make it sound pretty easy but forewarned is forearmed and I had read on some various sites to be careful about edge distance issues here. Sure enough, I took a closer look and would have had some problems if I had not seen those other sites. The basic problem is that the weldment needs to be tightly clamped to the fuselage sides in order to bring the drilled holes outboard enough to provide adequate edge distance. You are basically match drilling the spacer, which already has a hole, to the weldment below and the cockpit rail above. Tricky.

This photo shows the 1/8 inch holes drilled through the cockpit rails into the weldment. I thought about this for awhile and decided the best thing to do was to clamp it up, drill some common holes in the spacers, and then remove the whole assembly back to the workbench to drill from the bottom of the weldment up through the cockpit rails.

Here is the whole assembly off the fuselage for drilling on the rail on the left side of the photo. This seemed to work pretty well.

The only fly in this ointment, however, is that it seems unavoidable to drill one of the aft holes so it is right next to the welded tube. The rivet call out here is for a pulled rivet, but it seems too tight even for that. The rivet won't protrude far enough from the surface without hitting the tubular structure.

A couple of solutions come to mind and I may need to talk to the kind folks at Vans about this.

Next up was mounting and drilling the tail wheel spring assembly. The aft most skin comes back off and the spring is fitted into the area, clecoed into holes drilled earlier on the most aft bulkhead, and then carefully measuring on the next forward bulkhead to get the correct angle and alignment. Worked okay.

In order to accommodate the spring assembly, the aft belly skin has to be trimmed with an opening. Using the template provided, I laid it out on the skin for trimming with a band saw later this week.

And that is how my work for the weekend ended. Slow but steady progress.

September 27, 2011

Finished up a few items on the fuselage before taking the whole thing back apart. Now comes some tedious preparatory work that will end when I start putting the fuselage back together...several weeks or months hence.

I did have to take a few final photos before it comes apart.

An an interior shot for no particular reason.

I marked up the aft end of the upper longerons, I mean really marked them up, for future trimming.

Then it all came apart remarkably quickly. After a few hours, this was left of the fuselage...just the forward fuselage framework.

And one of the several pile of parts to be worked and prepared for final assembly.

In the process of disassembling the fuselage, I discovered a stupid error I made. This is a view of part of the F-807 bulkhead, one of the bottom corners. Somehow when the bulkhead was placed the corners shifted out of position and I didn't catch it. When I match drilled, I foolishly thought that these tabs did not have pre-drilled holes because I could not see any of them on either corner. Didn't check further, but match drilled from the skin holes and here is the result.

I talked to a couple of my A&P technical advisor guys about whether I could put a doubler into the inside of the bulkhead and use the parts, or just replace them. Because several of the holes are close to the radius of the curve, I had pretty much decided to replace the parts. Bummer.

I did shoot an email off to Van's with this photo, though, and the word came back that I might just cut out the offending tabs and make new tabs that match exactly and rivet the new section into the bulkhead. I'll try that and see if it works; if I'm not happy with it I'll just replace the part. I learned the same lesson again...how many times do I get to "learn" it?

October 6, 2011

Did a bit of work over the past week but it lay primarily in the area of parts preparation for the fuselage. The instructions are laid out pretty logically for this work: first you do all the machine countersinking for all the fuselage parts, then you do the deburrring and edgefinishing, then you do the dimple countersinking. Very logical. So, this past week, we did all the countersinking and Nathan started the deburring. In the process of following along for the countersinking, I determined that I had neglected to drill out to #19 size some holes on the outer surface of the landing gear boxes that will hold screws instead of rivets. I had to lay the skin up along with the reinforcing parts and drill these before they could be countersunk.

The last parts to be countersunk are the long upper longerons. Went fairly quickly but it was monotonous. There are quite a few holes in these parts that will shortly hold rivets.

Nathan has a new distraction but I don't expect it will keep him from jumping right in on the coming deburring and dimpling.

I'm off to work on my job for two straight weeks....flying in Alaska....so I won't get back to the fuselage until the third week of October.

November 7, 2011

Even though I haven't posted anything in over a month, I've made substantial progress; it just doesn't show much. After spending the first two weeks of October in Alaska working, I was able to devote several long sessions to the fuselage prepatory work, and it is now pretty much done. Now, the process of doing the final assembly of the fuselage is underway.

One of the little things I came across that was a bit of mystery to me were these little cutouts in the lower aft fuselage longerons. These weren't explained in the instructions but they matched left and right. I decided not to spend too much time on them...I simply smoothed the areas out. Move on.

I spent many hours deburring, edging, and dimpling parts, then priming them. Here is a collection of fuselage parts set aside for reassembly.

The aft lower skin was the last large piece of skin that I had to do the preparation work on. Here it is deburred and dimpled and awaiting priming on the inside surfaces.

This past week I started the reassembly. Here the mid fuselage or seat rib structure has been clecoed back onto the forward fuselage structure.

And here is the first riveting done on the reassembly: attaching the main seat ribs to the seat rib angle on the center section. Actually, these rivets in close to the spar web were hard to do. I had to use an offset rivet set and that can be problematic. If you don't line it up just perfectly you can massacre the rivet. I massacred a few but got it done eventually.

Here, the mid-fuselage skins are clecoed in place. This occurs after the internal structure is back riveted onto the skin. Thing actually go together pretty quickly because most of the hard work is done. Now it is just riveting.

The upper longerons are fitted into place and they are riveted to the engine mounts and the landing gear boxes. Pretty straightforward. Away we go.

The forward fuselage skins are built up with the structure clecoed off the fuselage, and then added as one piece. Before the forward skins are riveted, a line of sealant is applied between the flange of the firewall and the forward edge of the skin. I had lent out my cartridge gun for the sealant, so I set this step aside until I can get it back. Then the skins will be clecoed into final position.

After the forward structure went as far as it could, I attached the F-807 bulkhead and riveted it into position. I had had some problems with this bulkhead with mis-drilled holes but had made satisfactory repairs to the parts on the advice of Van's. Worked out fine, and then the baggage floor structure was riveted to the bulkhead.

And this is how I left it for the week. The forward fuselage is pretty well together and the aft structure is ready to be attached during my next session.

All told, the fuselage is coming together nicely. It won't be long until I am riveting the skins into place.

November 16, 2011

Making more progress in the past two weeks. The fuselage is now clecoed together and I am riveting the skins on.

I got my caulking gun back and laid the bead of sealant along the firewall flange that meets the forward fuselage skin. Then I was able to cleco those skins into position.

At that point, there is some riveting of the forward and mid skins to the structure. One area that others have seen problems with is around the main wing spar area. The bottom two rivets on each side of the spar opening are pulled because there is so little room to rivet otherwise.

Because access is so tight here, and because it was fairly easy to pull the skins away from the structure right now, I went ahead and did the four pulled rivets and also all the edge rivets around the opening. Worked just fine on both sides.

I added the baggage floor ribs and they are riveted to the F-807 bulkhead.

The two very aft fuselage bulkhead as riveted to the aft lower skin before it goes onto the fuselage structure. Here is the assembly on the workbench. I had a few problems here...I was not happy with the "keeper" rivets and the alignment of the tail wheel mounting, so I replaced the rivets with some screws, washers, and nuts. Notice the lower longerons are also fitted at this step.

After that work is done, the aft side skins and the aft lower skins are fitted onto the fuselage. Here is the result after I moved the fuselage off the workbench and onto a pair of sawhorses. Looks pretty good to these eyes. Here the fuselage will stay, either right side up or upside down, through the skin riveting process.

And that's where I left it when I went off to fly for my job this week. Over the next few weeks I hope to complete the fuselage skin riveting, a major milestone in the construction of this airplane.

I haven't updated over the past three weeks because I was too busy with either working on the airplane or with life. But, it is moving forward with tangible progress

Work continues on riveting the fuselage. Here it is right side up, with those rivets I could get to while working solo done. The strap is a "just in case" thing; it was easy to imagine the fuselage coming off the saw horses for any number of reasons.

Once the rivets I could get by myself were completed, we flipped the fuselage inverted as per the plans, to make it easier to get the rest of them with a driver on one side and a bucker on the inside.

Of course, my riveting partner (Nathan) was not always available, so I moved on to other items as called out by the plans. I put together both the front and rear seatbacks for later installation in the fuselage. They went together in a straightforward manner. Here is the front seat back clecoed together.

And here is the rear seat back clecoed together. The rear seat back is a bit more complex than the front one with more parts.

And, here are the two seat backs completed. They were primed and riveted and ready to go. In front of the seat backs is the battery box that I also assembled. It will be installed aft of the rear baggage compartment.

I also took the time to try and finish up some rivets that hold the upper longeron to the upper engine mount on the left side of the fuselage. There wasn't any easy way to buck this row of rivets. I ended up removing some of the rivets set earlier to allow a bucking bar to get to the shop end of the rivets. This view is looking up at the inverted fuselage, with seven rivets removed.

Here is an interior shot of the re-prepared rivet holes awaiting another attempt at setting these rivets. It worked much better with the blocking rivets removed; not perfect but it will work. I then re set the removed rivets and that area was completed.

Back to the fuselage riveting, here is a view of the underside of the fuselage with most, but not all, of the rivets set. Nathan and I ran out of time on these few, a bit more challenging than the others and not to do when tired or rushed. We'll do them during the next session.

And a good overview of the fuselage as it stood after the last session we did. The aft and forward rivets are largely set; yet to do are the ones in the center section area. Next time around.

December 17, 2011

Finished most of the fuselage riveting and it has been flipped back over right side up. Then the front seat back was installed and I've done some of the drilling on the landing gear brackets.

Here is the fuselage right side up with the skin riveting completed. Nathan and I pushed through and finished the last rivets on the mid side skins during our Saturday session week before last.

And another view.

And yet another view.

When I worked on this week, I installed the side rails on both sides, riveted and screwed into position. Fairly straightforward and it turned out pretty well. I then mounted and attached the front seatback support plates with rivets.

And then the seat back weldment is bolted into place.

The skin riveting section is completed except for attaching the aft deck and associated parts onto the aft fuselage. So how easy is it to rivet the F-810 bulkhead in backwards? Pretty easy, apparently. It needs to now have a bunch of rivets drilled out, and then it will be flipped around and re-riveted. Not sure how I did that. Fortunately, they are only skin rivets and this should be fixable with a few hours of time. Oh well. Then I will attach the aft deck and associated parts.

Moving on to the landing gear, I was able (with a bit of able help) to match drill the inner brackets through the landing gear legs with a 7/16" drill and a drill press, then match drilled those holes through the friction plates. Worked out just fine. Mounting and drilling the gear to the fuselage is coming soon.

December 31, 2011

Passed a couple of milestones in the past two weeks: drilled the landing gear and mounted the fuselage on a rotisserie. We are moving into a new phase of the construction process; fitting, as the new year begins.

Week before last Nathan help me fit the landing gear into place on the inverted fuselage. That was straightforward and put me in a position to begin the process of finely adjusting the location of the gear for drilling. I perused a number of web postings on drilling the gear, and carefully read the Van's instructions.

The goal is to mount the main gear wheel mounting plates exactly parallel to each other and parallel to the aircraft centerline. Looking at different options, I decided the best way to do this was to clamp steel angle to each main gear mounting plate....I used the same angle I had used earlier to bend the control surfaces. The trailing edge of the angle was exactly 30 inches aft of the aft side of the landing gear. I thought I had taken a picture of the set up but apparently not.

It was simple enough to get the landing gear exactly parallel to each other: 64.75 inches at the gear and at the point 30 inches aft of the gear. Getting the gear parallel with the centerline of the fuselage while keeping it parallel with each other was bit more difficult. I used the center of the tail wheel mount at the aft end of the fuselage and measured forward to the aft end of each angle, and also to one of the wheel mounting holes on the gear itself. The angle measurements were more critical in my geometry fuzzy mind, but I compromised between the two measurements and in the end, had an exactly parallel gear and less than 1/8 inch difference in the tail to angle measurements. Of course, changing one meant changing everything else, so it was a slow process.

After all was checked and rechecked, I considered how I was going to drill these holes. There are four 5/16" holes, two 3/8", and two 1/4" holes on each side of the airplane to be drilled, the first six through the landing gear weldments and the last two through the inboard friction plate. After reading a bunch of forum posting and websites, this drilling seemed to be problematic so I approached it with a bit of trepidation.

Starting with three new cobalt drills, I started the process. Using a lot of Boelube, low RPMs on my standard deWalt drill, and a fair amount of pressure, all the drilling was straightforward and went pretty quickly. I had all holes drilled in a couple of hours, tops. I drilled the last four holes, which were the 1/4 inch holes through the inboard friction plate, from the bottom side up: through the inboard gear weldments to the plates. I was surprised at how, with a bit of patience, these holes were also straightforward even drilling on my back upwards. The whole process was messy, what with a whole lot of oil and metal flying about, but it proved much easier than expected. After my research, it seemed the cobalt drill bits would prove to be better than the titanium plated drill bits, and I think this was the case. The cobalt bits stayed sharp through the process and I think this is the key.

So, here is a photo of the gear after the drilling was completed and the angles removed. With bolts dropped into position, I remeasured everything: the gear remained exactly parallel but was about 0.25 inch out (30 inches aft of the gear mounting) of being exactly parallel with the centerline. The thing moved about 1/8 inch in the process which was surprising but, in the end, acceptable. The error reduced the closer to the gear you got...it was about 1/8 inch at the gear itself.

Here is another view taken during the drilling process with the outboard mount moved away from the friction plate.

The left side completed with bolts dropped into place.

One of the things mentioned in my review of the best way to do this was a problem getting a socket on the nuts on the outboard weldments due to close proximity to edge of the weldment. Van's calls for 3/16" edge distance of the outboard mount to the edge of the longeron. After reading of other's experience, I increased this by 1/32" to put the bolts on the centerline of the available channel in the weldment to allow a socket to fit. This worked out perfectly so from this builder, anyways, use 7/32" (or 0.219") from the longeron to center your nuts. It's an RV-8 sort of thing; not everyone will understand this proclamation.

This hole placement also helps when the forward lower skins are fitted. Not sure how Van's thought this was going to work with the skins, but mine worked out better than some. These two bolts are clear of the surrounding skin but I will have to cut out a bit from the cover plates to allow the plates to lie flat. That's just fine; the whole thing is covered by a fairing later in the build process anyways.

I did fit the lower skins into place after the drilling was completed. Riveting these skins is the next step in the plans but I'm going to wait a bit. I'm not going to bolt the gear on now, and I'm not that far from leveling the fuselage to mount the empennage. I'd rather have the flat surface of the forward fuselage without the skins to work with rather than risk damaging the mounted skins when the thing is sitting on a sawhorse. So, these forward skins will wait until the empennage is mounted and drilled.

Also, for several reasons I have decided to use an EFII electric fuel pump and I need to mount some nutplates on the left forward fuselage floor. Robert from EFII kindly passed along the measurements for the mounting plate, so I will drill the holes and install the nutplates. This has to be done before adding the lower skin in the area to allow riveting access for flush rivets.

I hope to order the electric fuel pump in the next month or two to allow me to plumb the fuel system, but that is still out there in the future a bit. Need to plan ahead, though.

So, after the gear was mounted and removed, it was time to pull out the Harbor Freight engine stand I purchased many months ago for use as a rotisserie. This is a common process for RV builders and comes highly recommended to make the fuselage work much easier. Okay, then. Most builders utilize the engine mount holes to mount the modified engine stand "spider" assembly. I had thought to use a plywood face mounted to the firewall with the "spider" assembly mounted to the plywood. I thought this through and discarded it, though, and decided that extending the arms of the "spider" was a better idea. Most guys figured this out the same way I did, just quicker.

So, using some scrap angle, some new hardware, and a good drill press and a bit of patience, I can up with this assembly bolted together here and mounted to the firewall.

The vertical post on the stand is substantially canted at an angle, something that I thought could be resolved at the tail stand. However, once I mounted the stand to the firewall I could see the geometry was not good. I would have to raise the tail substantially to take the angular pressure off the firewall mount so, instead of raising the bridge I lowered the river. As a stopgap I used a Harbor Freight moving cart and some 2x4s to get the vertical post squared up.

I looked at this set up and decided some 6" wheels used to replace the wheels on the right side of this photo would get me the correct angle, but I could not find any on my cursory wheel shopping trip. Just as well, as plan B worked better.

If removed the wheels and used the slightly higher carpeted pad on the cart, the vertical post was just about vertical. A couple of holes later and few U bolts and here we had what I needed.

This was the result. I don't know how other guys avoided this modification as the geometry does not work well if the engine stand is flat on the ground. This adds mobility, also, as all the wheels now caster so the stand can be easily repositioned any which way.

Here's what I was aiming at. I have the fuselage on the rotisserie so can sit on my little stool and peer into the top of the fuselage from the side. I will spend a good amount of time doing just that.

Here was what I came up with for the tail stand. I used a piece of PVC pipe over the tail gear post with a rag to act as a bit of cushion. The PVC pipe is U-bolted to the sawhorse. Easy. I thought about using a piece of 1/2 inch pipe instead of the actual landing gear post but this seems to be fine and the part better be able to handle this stress if it is going to handle my landings.

So, this brings me to the end of my third year of building. Year four starts. The first four months of year three were pretty much devoted to completing the wings, the flaps, and the ailerons. The rest of the year was spent on the basic fuselage construction, and that is now completed. Looking back, I continue to enjoy the building process and have fallen into a pleasant routine of working on Saturday and a few evenings here and there as I can. I continue to learn a bunch of stuff and have had some great help from a bunch of people both near and far. My wife is getting used to having an airplane in the garage though the more it looks like an airplane the more she realizes it actually is an airplane. This makes here a bit nervous, I think.

As for the year ahead, I expect to order the finishing kit in the next few months, probably before February 1 to avoid a Van's price increase. Systems are going to go into the airplane this year: controls and hydraulics and wiring. New challenges. I have time on my hands as the engine and propeller purchases loom as financial obstacles yet to be overcome. But there remains much to do in the near term; should be fun.