Priming - Round 2 - 6 hours

I really hate priming. I've tried to avoid it as best I could but I needed to get a bunch of parts primed today. It was the worst weather for it -32deg C. I heated up the garage and set up. Started in on washing, scrubbing, rinsing, cleaning, priming. It is a very nasty process as the pro-Form Degreaser and the MEK are pungent. The 2-part epoxy primer is downright nasty stuff.  It burns your eyes and even with the respirator on, it burns the lungs a bit. It has a tenancy to seep into the house as well. I can't wait till summer when I can do this outside.

I finished priming the HS parts and the rudder parts. I have most of the elevator stiffeners primed too  

Elevator stiffeners and Elev. Trim Plate - 3 hours

I spent a bunch of time match drilling the elevator stiffeners to the skins. I also work away on the E-615PP trim access reinforcement plate. I dimpled the #6 screw holes, and then I set out to read up on what to do with the attachment holes for the corresponding K1100-06 nutplates. Obviously the rivets need to be the #426 flush type. I'm just not sure if I need to dimple or countersink. I see that a few folks have countersunk the reinforcement plate. Being that the material is 0.032" thick it is at the minimum recommended thickness for countersinking. I see that some people have opted for the oops rivet which keeps the smaller head but uses the larger #4 shank. I decided to countersink the reinforcement plate and then take it to my EAA meeting next week so I can have the guys take a look at it.

UPDATE - Well seems I made another mistake. I didn't quite understand that the oops rivet substitution that the Vans manual describes, and other folks have used is to replace the 426AD3-3.5 rivet that is called for with a NAS1097AD3-3.5 rivet.

I had it in my head to use an NAS1097AD4-X rivet which is wrong! I had countersunk this piece too deep. Now to start again!

Worked on Rudder strips and VS Spar - 4 hours

I put in a decent day on the plane. I made the R-918 attach strips. It took a bit of time to fit them. I was careful to check and recheck fit to ensure that I had proper edge distances. This is one part that could cause some issue with the forward end. After all was said and done, the attach strips turned out well.

I then worked on cleaning up the edges on the R-710 horn brace. I was please will all the edge distances as well. It paid off to heed other builders warnings to not cut too much off on this part.

I then worked on the new VS-803PP spar and VS-808PP doubler. 

Completed the Rudder Horn Brace - 2 hours

Nov 17, 2014 - 2 hours

Unfortunately my progress has been quite slow as I have been battling a bad cold. I did manage to do a little bit of work on the rudder. I cleco'd the skins to the rudder structure and proceeded to cut away the excess material on the horn brace. I've read many build logs where folks have trimmed too much so I was careful to not cut too much. I'd fit it, check, cut, then repeat until I was happy with the results. I rounded out the sharp corners with the 3m wheel.

Completed the VS - ready for pre-cover inspection - 4 hours

Riveting the spars and ribs together took a bit of thought. Some rivets you need to buck, some can be squeezed. I ended up drilling a couple of rivets out as I didn't set them enough, and when I went to give them a bit more, I gave them the smiley face on the head. I placed the rivets so that all shop heads are visible during the precover inspection.

 I then worked on cleco'ing the skin onto the structure then bucking rivets. I was surprised how well the rivets were to buck on the skin. It was much more easier than bucking the larger #4 rivets. I quickly was able to pick up the feel and sound of a properly bucked rivet. All in all the skin riveting went extremely well. I only had to drill out 5 or 6 rivets and re-do. The drilled out rivets came out so much easier than when working on the rear spars. I only had a two slight issues, only where trying to get rivets out holes where there was multiple pieces nested together. In one instance I had bent the very bottom rib flange tab while trying to take the rivet out. It took a bit of head scratching to figure out how to fix this. I thought about using a cherry max rivet, but then I decided to use my Dow Corning 3145 RTV to "glue" the slightly bent tab back into place. I then drilled the holes to #30 to accept an oops rivet.

I only have 4-3.5 oops rivets for now, I will order some longer ones and then buck the two needed rivets.

Dimpled the VS skin - 1.5hrs

I spent the evening dimpling the Vertical stabilizer. Took a bit of time to set up in the basement so I didn't have to work in a cold garage. (It was -20deg C outside) and I didn't want to heat up the garage for just that.

I finally won one!! Rear HS Spar - 4 Hours

I really thought about the project today while I was at work. It seems such a shame that I want to throw in the towel so early. It bothered me to give up. I reasoned that I was only going to get better if I kept with it. I decided to at least take another crack at riveting the horizontal stabilizer spar.

With the lessons learned from the other day, I was careful to check all the rivet call outs on the plans. And of course....they were slightly off.  For example the plans call for HS-609PP to be riveted to HS-603PP with 4-6 rivets.

Well 4-6 rivets are too short according to the gauge.

So I used 4-7 rivets and according to the gauge they were just a hair over....but darn near perfect. So I used those rivets instead. I ended up drilling out every tenth rivet or so and re-doing it as it is difficult to get the rivets set perfectly with the squeezer. I would set a few good ones, and then there would be one that was shifted to the side. (Very obvious if you looked down along the row of shop heads). I seemed to work out my technique for taking out rivets. As usual drilling the machine head is difficult as the drill still wants to wander off center when using the hand drill, but I could always seem to direct the drill head towards center. Using the punch I would break off the head.

Builders Tip -  But the trick I learned was to use big pliers (with electrical tape on the nose to protect the piece) and slowly twist the rivet at the shop head. This became extremely effective to remove rivets. (At first I put tape on the piece, but later found tape on the pliers worked better) 

And after careful work....I finally completed the HS rear spar!!! Yahoo!!!