Finished riveting left skin to forward spar and ribs: 5.2 hours

Finished all the hard to reach rivets on the left skin. I also riveted on the difficult nose rib on the right skin. This operation went better than the left side but was still difficult.

Right skin temporarily in place, ready to be attached to forward spar...

 

 

 

 

Started riveting left skin to forward spar and ribs: 10 hours

I ended up getting a lot done by putting in a long day. I got off to a slow start. Riveting the skin onto the ribs and spar involves some very tight locations.

I also spent about an hour removing an replacing a pull rivet inside the structure that I placed incorrectly. In the course of drilling out the bad rivet the hole was enlarged. Fortunately I had planned ahead for the mistake and I had a selection of slightly oversize CherryMax rivets on hand. These pull rivets are actually much stronger than the ones spec'd in the plans.

I also had one conventional driven rivet securing the tip rib to the spar that I was not happy with so I replaced it. That went fairly quickly. In general most riveting mistakes can be corrected without scrapping the part but the corrections can consume a lot of time.

The other challenge of the day was all the tight space riveting. It took me some time before I figured out a technique that worked for fitting my hands inside the structure to hold the bucking bar.

Tight space but only a few rivets:

 

Starting to rivet the skin to the forward spar:

 

Tight spaces and a lot of rivets ... Slow going at first

 

 

Riveted inboard ribs to forward spar 1.3 hours

The forward spar for the horizontal stabilizer is done. Ready to start riveting the skin.

 

Forward spar assembly:

 

 

Prepped right skin and started riveting: 7.5 hours

Got a lot done today. In the morning I deburred, smoothed, dimpled and primed the right skin. After lunch dad came over and we started riveting together the rear spar. As the afternoon progressed I was able to finish riveting the rear spar and also get the front spar riveted. I used the squeezer for the rear spar and some rivets on the front spar. The rest were done with the rivet gun. No bad rivets. I may touch up a little of the primer later. So far everything is going well.

 

Right skin getting primed

 

Rear spar complete!

 

The front spar was much quicker...

 

Now ready to start riveting ribs and skins.

Deburred, dimpled and primed left skin: 2.3 hours

The left horizontal stabilizer skin is now ready to rivet. In addition to deburring the rivet holes I also finished all the edges with a file and scotch brite pads. All the skins are cut very precisely by a computer but there are still burrs and machining marks on the edges that need to be smoothed.

Ready to dimple the left skin

 

 

 

 

Dimpled horizontal stab structure and primed: 3 hours

This went well. Started out with the table dimpler but the best solution was the pneumatic squeezer mounted in a vise.

 

 

After dimpling I wiped down the parts with MEK and primed with NAPA 7220 self etching primer. Easy to use and very tough.

Primed and ready to rivet...

 

Next up is deburring and priming the skins. Then rivet it all together!

Prepped horizontal stab structure for riveting: 3.5 hours

Nothing too exciting. A lot of the time in the building process is taken up with manual labor like deburring holes and finishing edges. It's tedious but keeps the kit price low.

No photos today.

Ordered wing kit today!

The wing kit should arrive in about 10 weeks.

RV-7

Wing kit:

A lot going on in there...

 

I was debating ordering the quick build wings but instead I decided to build the majority of the wings myself and have the fuel tanks built by a specialist (I spoke with him and he said he has built over 400 RV wing tanks). This should save me approximately 150 to 200 hours (equivalent to about 3 months of work at my 60 hour per month target).

I did get a few extras for the fuel tanks such as an inverted fuel pickup for one tank (for aerobatic flight) and some deluxe fuel caps (just because).

Fuel tank bling...

 

I also ordered a handy tool today:

Pneumatic cleco gun

 

 

This is an inexpensive air powered tool for placing and removing the temporary cleco fasteners that are heavily used in the wing and all other aspects of the build.

Hopefully I will have to do less of this:

Finished drilling both horizontal stabilizers and rivet practice: 7 hours

Finished the drilling the left side then repeated the same steps on the right. The right was faster. The next steps will be prepping for riveting: deburr, dimple, prime... After I was finished with the stabilizer I spent some time practicing riveting with the rivet gun and the squeezer.

 

Drilling out the right inboard rib.

 

Shop cat

 

The skeleton for the left horizontal stabilizer.

 

Fitted and drilled left inboard ribs and match drilled top skin: 3 hours

Spent a good bit of time fitting and drilling the ribs using the skin as a guide. Also had to drill the tricky holes through the front spar and reiniforcement angles.

The holes on the right were very tricky to measure, mark and drill.

Every hole has to be a minimum distance from the edge of the material and my top hole was right on the minimum. ( but good according to mil-spec guidlines for riveting ) I will give myself a little more space on the right side.

All the top side holes have been match drilled.

Prepared the ribs and set up the left horizontal stab for drilling: 8 hours

 

Not these kind of ribs

Here they are...

A couple of the ribs had to be trimmed precisely to fit the forward spar. The rest of the work was a lot of deburring and smoothing.

Various Scotchbrite wheels. Very helpful.

The fun part came when I go to temporarily assemble the left section to check the fit of the trimmed ribs etc. There are some tight tolerances and it seems to be a common area for mistakes. It's amazing how much helpful info people have on the web about the building process.

 

 

 

 

Finished front spar prep and started on ribs: 6.5 hours

Finished smoothing out the taper cuts in the reinforcing angles and bent the angles according to the plans.

This digital angle gauge made it easy to get good bends

A good deal of time was spent trimming the front spar flanges and drilling relief holes for there small bend. Also a lot of smoothing the tight spaces on the spars to make sure no cracks appear down the road.

Front spar

Good bends

Also countersinked and dimpled the front spar for some flush rivets in the center section. The rest of the time was spent trimming and finishing the 2 nose ribs to fit around the reinforcing angles.

Worked on front spar for horizontal stabilizer: 1.5 hours

Match drilled some holes then worked on tapering the reinforcing angles for the front spar. Then went climbing at the North Face of Looking Glass.

Front spar assembly

 

Getting ready to taper the angles on the bandsaw

The tapers turned out good. A couple of things I picked up from the Van's Air Force forums helped out. One tip was to always make sure you have your 2 diameter distance from the hole to the edge. The other was to make the parts slightly bigger than called for in the plans. It seems there is allowance for being a little over sized but not for being undersized.

 

Finished horizontal stab rear spar prep: 3 hours

Drilled out holes for the hinge brackets and did the first riveting for the elevator bearing. At this point the rear spar gets set aside for a while. Now on to the front spar.

Used the pneumatic squeezer on the bearing assembly

 

Everything went well except for one rivet that I got a little carried away on. That one had to be drilled out and replaced. Not a hard operation but time consuming.

 

Rear horizon stab spar temporarily assembled

 

This clip is a good motivator:

 

 

More rear horizontal stab spar work: 2 hours

I was able to squeeze in a few hours on this before leaving for the airport.

 

 

Horizontal stabilizer rear spar work: 2 hours

Slow going shaping the stiffeners to fit in the spar.

 

Unboxing & Inventory: 2 hours

It's Christmas in June!

The empennage kit includes all the parts needed to build the tail surfaces for the airplane including the electric elevator trim servo. Very efficient packing for a lot of parts. Everything was there and undamaged.

CNC cut skins