Made the fuselage mobile cart - 6 hours

 I want to get the fuselage on a mobile cart so I can move the fuse out of the garage this summer. Give me room to work and also the ability to clean and sweep the floors around the fuse.

Off to home depot I went anf bought the wood and locking casters I needed. Wow it was expensive. 7/16" OSB was $60/sheet and a 10' 2x4" was $15/each). Ouch. Well I spent the day working on its and then painted it. 

Flap system and tunnel cover work - 6 hours

 I need to re-do the F-785A backrest brace. Originally I had drilled it for the stock RV backrest, but then after installing the Almost an RV14 mod the holes are not the same. I'm sure I could leave it as-is and carry on but it bothers me to leave it like this. 

So, I ordered a new piece and began the fitup process again, but this time with the holes for the almost a 14 mod only. 

 After the backrest brace is all set-up and redrilled. The fit for the seat mod is turning out extremely well. I do have to mess a bit with bending the tabs on the stainless backrest crossbar to tweek the fit, but in the end a have an install I am really happy with. 

 

Now I'm ready to finish the tunnel cover. With the flap assembly complete, I've focused a bit on the final fit of the F-741A z-channels. There is a bit of interference between the rivets on the flap channel and the z-channel. I will have to remove some material so that these parts do not rub.

Next I need to fit and drill the F-741B cover to the z-channels. However I notice that the width of the cover as called for in the plans (2 3/4") is not enough to fully span the width of the tunnel cover. Looks like I am short about 1/8" on both sides. 

So..what to do. 3 options..1 - Leave it, 2 - Make new F-741A z-channels, 3 - Make a wider F-741B cover.  Ultimately since I have spare lengths of z-channel I went with option #2 and I have everything re-cut after about an hour worth of work. I started drilling the new holes for the #8 holes and drilled one too large with a 1/4" bit. Just not paying attention. So annoying. So I scrapped Option 2 and went with Option 3. I just made a wider F-741B tunnel cover. Hopefully this works and won't be rubbing on the seat. All else fails I can always make a new tunnel cover if ever needed.

 

 

 

Installed the F-721B Aft Canopy Deck and misc. cabin riveting - 3 hours

I am now ready to start riveting on the F-721B canopy deck (side rails). The question I have is do I also want to install the F-721A fwd canopy deck. From my research it seems that a few builders have chosen to install the both canopy decks at the same time, some don't. I reached out to a local builder who just finished his RV7A (Tracy Trathern). He indicated that I need to drill and fit some of the panel angles to the front canopy and there was still yet some riveting to that front deck. I followed his advice and will hold off on riveting the forward canopy deck. 

I started riveting the aft canopy deck. Working from the center out. 

 

I cannot rivet too far forward since space is extremely tight between the canopy deck and longeron. My bucking bars are just too thick.  I will have to figure something out to finish these off. Next, I installed the seat belt anchor cable guides in the baggage bulkhead.

 

Fixing the flap channel - 3 hours

 I was too eager to rivet yesterday and didn't look at the drawings carefully enough. I riveted the F-766C plate to the flap channel using AN470 rivets as opposed to the required AN426 rivets. Well I soon noticed the error when I started to install the flap system side covers...yup, they didn't sit flat. 

I need to drill out the 4 rivets, countersink/dimple the assembly, touch-up the primer and re-assemble. 

 

Now I was ready to re-install everything. Once done, it was ready for the first person to sit in the plane. It was my son Trip...who is the first official person in the plane. (And if your wondering...there's no cleco's where he is sitting...lol)

 

Priming cabin area parts - 7 hours

 Big day of priming today. The parts are big and a bit of work to scuff all of them and prep them for painting. I managed to do the best I could and get it really clean and acid etched. The side steps being steel got a slightly different treatment. The entire assembly was buffed clean with a non-ferrous wheel and then 220 grit sandpaper. Wiped down with MEK and sprayed.

All these parts are hard wearing parts and thus got the epoxy primer treatment. I only have one or two more priming sessions with epoxy primer.... and good riddance. This is a painful part of the build because the epoxy primer is so labour intensive, messy and ridiculous over-spray.

Later in the evening, I decided to install the pieces and nutplates on the flap channel and the baggage side covers.

 

Prepping interior parts for priming - 4 hours

 I am getting to the point where I need to start priming the interior cabin parts. So a big day of work but little progress. All of the parts needed the edges cleaned up and smoothed. All holes debured. I also needed to prep the side panels of the baggage compartment drilled and dimpled for nutplates. This is one part of the cabin area nutplates installation that I did not finish off. 

 

Finished drilling the bolt holes for the side steps - 2 hours

 My pneumatic 90deg drill from ATS arrived. Seeing how much 90deg drilling I will be doing in the next while I needed to pull the trigger on buying one of these. I didn’t waste time getting the step mounting blocks drilled to the baggage rib. The drill does an excellent job. 

 Now for the stressful part....drilling the mounting block to the side step. The reason why it’s stressful is getting the bolt hole in the correct location since the baggage ribs tend to bow a bit, and the only way to get them straight is to install the baggage floor. But I cannot drill with the floors on. So I ended up taking a bunch of measurements with the floors on...took the floor off, clamped some braces on the rib and verified  measurements. Closed my eyes and started the drill location to give me a marker. Next I removed the assembly and then reassembled on the drill press. Drilled one hole on one side, flipped the assembly 180deg and drilled the opposite hole. The result is that the bolt fit is tight and perfect.  A tedious process, but its done well.