Trying to finish the HS...Trying - 1 hour

I took a small step back. I've been reading on the Forums about attaching the rudder counterweight. Some have suggested using adhesive on the counterweight when installing. I too think that this makes sense. I've always been taught to glue and screw with wood work, so this made sense to me. I unbolted the weight, and put on a thin coat of my 3145 RTV and then re-bolted/re-torqued the assembly.

I then set to work on riveting the last few items on the HS. All went well with the exception of one rivet in the front spar that I managed to keep folding over. I had to drill it out a couple of times, which then prompted me to use an AD470AD5-8 rivet since the hole got just a tad too big. Unfortunately, i don't have the proper offset rivet set for this size. Now I need to put another order in. Oh well...s*%t happens! Grrr

Later my friend Mike came by in the evening and we spent a few hours on completing the back riveting of his F1 Rocket Elevators (RV8 elevators) and we bent them and the rudder using the wood brake. Worked like a charm! 

Completed the Trim Tab - 2 hours

Set out to figure how to set the two pop rivets on the left side of the trim tab. I've play around with this a bit...Really wish vans had pre-punched holes here like the other side. Oh well. Need to be careful of the minimum edge distances from the bottom tab, and also need to be able to get the dimple dies in there.

A CS4-4 rivet diameter is about 0.125". According to AC-43.13 rivet edge/spacing distances is measured from the center of the rivet to the edge (or center of the next rivet). For single row rivets, edge distance shall not exceed 2x the rivet diameter, and spacing shall not be less than 3x the diameter. This being the rule of thumb. Then the center of the rivet hole needs to be minimum 0.25" from the edge and spacing shall not be less than 0.375". To be safe I kept my distance 0.310" from the edge and a spacing of 0.54"

After I drilled the holes, everything went really well. I dimpled the new holes and there was just enough room to dimple them with the CS4 dies. I then cleco'd the trim tab assembly together and set the CS4 pop rivets followed by all the AN426AD3-4 rivets for the trim tab hinge. Looks great!

The trim tab is done!  

Closed the VS and HS - 4.5 Hours

I was really gunnin' to get things closed up. It feels great to pass the inspection, but I know it will feel much better to finally close up these pieces and complete them.

I started in on placing the rear spar in the Vertical Stabilizer and riveting it into place. It's a bit tricky to set some of those rivets as I have shop heads exposed on the backside of the spar stiffener (I was using the recommended method of keeping the shop head on the thinnest material as per the Van's Airforce forums - Seems that it's not always the most ideal to do this, but extremely difficult to determine when it's wise and when it's not. I then set the three pop rivets. All done!

I then went to work on getting the rear spar in the horizontal stabilizer. Everything went really well. Slow and steady wins the race, and I'm extremely pleased with how nice the rivets are set. I just need to drill out one AN470AD4-4 rivet that attaches the end rib, as well as I need to set the rivets to the front spar...Just a couple of odd rivets to set but I'll hold off until i'm feeling super confident on those.

Just about done the horizontal stabilizer. 

The Empennage Pre-Close Inspection

This morning I received a very surprising call. The inspector assigned to my pre-cover inspection was available in the afternoon and was willing to come by. Excellent news! All in all things went very well and he gave me some excellent insight. I was great to hear that I am on the right track and doing well. After a couple hours I got the thumbs up!!

Passed and ready to close!

Getting the Garage Ready for Winter - Part 2

I began work on getting power over to the unit heater from the electrical panel. There is a bit of skill involved in bending EMT conduit. Good practice for the upcoming fuel lines.

As a side note: I received my Canadian Aircraft Identification Plate in the mail. Woohoo!

Getting the Garage Ready for Winter

In an effort to get ready for the wings and the winter. I ran over the Princess Auto (Canadian version of Harbor Freight) and picked up a Natural Gas unit heater.Managed to get it hung in the garage.

Ordered the Wings

Well. It's Official! I ordered the wing kit today. 8 weeks give or take and I will be ready to start. Did I mention that the US dollar exchange rate is awful!! I also received an email from the MD-RA with the info of my assigned inspector. I called him briefly to set up the inspection date. He needs some documentation from the MD-RA that has been mailed out before he can schedule it, but it shouldn't be in the next couple of weeks.

Torqued the HS bolts and the Rudder Counterweight screws - 1/2 hour

Decided to torque the bolts on the Horizontal Stabilizer and the Rudder Counterweight. Finding the torque values for the bolts was easy enough, but its another thing finding them for the screws. Hint: The screws are similar to the AN3 bolt.

Helped a friend on his F1 Rocket

I helped a friend out today with his rudder on his F1 Rocket. He was having a bit of trouble riveting the stiffeners on his skins. (His rudder skin is like the RV7 Elevator skin). Its really a two person job. So we set off in the exact same manner as I did my elevator skins and it was a complete success. Mike did purchase a long back rivet set and I must admit....It really worked well to get the last rivets set next to the trailing edge bend of the skin.

Built a proper EAA table - Sorta

Well, I went to home depot and picked up all I needed to build a proper EAA Table (Well Sorta). Its a bit larger and taller than normal. I'm 6'3" so bending over all the time is not great. The table measures 72" long and 36" wide and it 36" in height. I also made it so it can be easily assembled/disassembled.

Just Messin' Around

Not much happened today in the way of progress. Just decided to put things together to see how it looked.