Riveting the Aft Deck/F-709 Bulkhead and drilling Shoulder Harness Anchors - 4.5 hours

 Spent the morning riveting the aft deck to the fuselage. Used a combination of bucking and squeezing. Took some time but I eventually got there.

 Now I am ready to fit and rivet the F-709 bulkhead to the aft deck. Bit of head scratching to figure out how to place the factory rivet head to the aft so it looks good. I ended up using my super long rivet set which does and excellent job of riveting.

Now I am ready to start the initial fitment of the F-775 rear top skin. This allows me to mark the appropriate holes on the F-709 bulkhead enough to give me an idea of where I need to flute.

 

Still on a bit of a roll. I moved on to the F-636 Shoulder Harness Anchors. After careful marking and placement I drilled the holes slightly undersized and then finished with the reamer. 

 

Fitting/Drilling the aft deck spacers and started the side canopy deck - 4 hours

 I am ready to fit and drill the aft deck spacers. I bought some 3M poster hanger tabs to help secure the spacers. I then slipped and celco'd the aft deck onto the fuse. This would allow me to draw circles in the holes of the aft deck and ensure everything looks good before I drill.

Once happy with the fit, and yes it took a little time to make sure the pieces were sitting proper, I finally committed to drilling. At this point I wanted to get working on the F-824B coverplate area before I got the aft deck on. much easier to at least dimple for the #6 screws now rather than later. 

I am now ready to debur and prime all of the aft deck parts.

 

While waiting for the primer to dry, I decided to move over the the F-721B side rails. I need to make a slot in the rail to accommodate the F-757-S gusset plate. First I marked out the lines for the slot, clamped an oak guide block and used the cutting wheel on the dremel to allow a rough cut.

After rough cuts where made, a little time was spent cleaning up the cuts with a file and then a buff with 3M on the dremel. 

After some primer dry time on the nut plates, I riveted the nutplates to the side skins.

And some closeups of the Aft deck spacers. As you can see the two holes on the longeron adjacent the F-711 spacer are awfully close to minimum edge distance which raised my eyebrows, but there is excellent edge distances on the F-711D angle mounted under it.

 

 

 

 

More Aft Deck work - 2.5 hours

 After the initial fitting of the aft deck, I still need to cut/fit the F-710C spacer and the F-711E down elevator stop/spacer. I took my time with the fitting and I am very pleased with how it all turned out. 

Next item was to cleco and match drill the F-709 bulkhead to the F-714 aft deck. Easier to do it now rather than later I suppose.

 

Drilling and riveting the F-695 Gussets - 6 hours

 I called Vans Technical Support in the morning when I got up. After reviewing the pictures and some discussion, the best scenario for what I had going on was to clamp the weldment a bit. While it is true that edge distances are not as critical for steel as they are for aluminum, we really want to increase the possible edge distance were we can. It was agreed that too much pre-load was not great, but the consensus is to split the difference as best I could. Excellent...I can do that.

So later in the day, I got to work! I did some edge prep on the gussets to get them to fit a little better against the firewall. Using AutoCAD I re-spaced the rivets to give me good edge distances all round, I then transferred those onto the actual gusset using a #40 drill.

I then clamped all the pieces down. Notice that I have a brace against the firewall. That is to help push a little on the firewall to get it perfectly straight. It has a very slight bow so before I drill the gusset to the firewall I want to make sure everything is straight.

 Once happy with the fit, I drilled into the longerons with #40. I then used these pilot holes and used by drill guide from ATS to finish the holes.

Using a reamer, I upsized the holes to #30. 

Edge distance is much improved on the left side. I confirmed 0.1875" which I am very happy with.

Feeling confident. I started riveting. (I decided I will rivet the holes along the firewall later. It was getting late).

 

 

Started fitting the F-695 Gussets - 6.5 hours

 Feeling confident dealing with all the anxiety of the Aft Deck fitting and drilling. I decided to tackle the F-695 gussets while the fuselage was all perfectly level. I had been tipped off that other builders had not paid much attention to edge distances on the steel weldment and it bit them. So I decided to get all the edge distances drawn out on the gussets.  This took a lot of time for such a small item, but its a critical item. 

My right side weldment is basically perfect fitment. 

However the left side is not perfect. This happens due to various reasons, welding is one of them as the heat generated by the weld can move pieces out of proper position. So how to make the left weldment work? Basically if I left things as-is I only have 0.16" edge distance if I follow Vans 7/16" dimension. I can get 0.240" clear if I move the holes out further to minimum edge distance on the longeron.

Now the tricky part. I can clamp the weldment...but by clamping it I notice I introduce a considerable amount of tension on the firewall and firewall angles. Im not sure that I sould be putting these parts under such pre-load. The gap does tighen...but I have to really squeeze that clamp tight. I will call Vans tech support in the morning and double check with them what to do.

Another item that many builders talk about is the fit of the gusset against the firewall. I will double check my rivet spacing and try to lessen this gap as best I can by removing a little bit of material from the gusset.

 Another item to factor in is the rivet spacing if using the dimensions on the plans vs. how that will actually hit the weldment. Using AutoCAD, I drew out the dimensions of the gusset and the rivet holes and printed it out. This paper template would easily let me do my checks. I can see that Van's stock rivet placement dimensions will cause a little grief if I am not careful. Looks like I will need to make some adjustments on the spacing.

 

 

 

 

 

Drilled the F-714 Aft Deck - 1 hour

 Ready to drill the Aft Deck to the longerons. Anxiety level was a tad high....this is it. No turning back.

Re-made the F-711D angle and fitted the Aft Deck - 7 hours

I started fitting the aft deck onto the fuselage and noticed that I wasnt quite getting the holes to line up with the 7/16" measurement on drawing #18. The holes are very close, but the sit just inward from the dimension given. I looked all over to be sure my fitment was correct and yup...things are just slightly off. No way I can squeeze things together to make the 7/16" line fall within the center of the holes on the Aft Deck. 

Looks like I will need to run with this. I'm not worried as it is so darn close, and I certainly have enough edge distance. I drew a red minimum edge distance line on the longeron just to be sure.

Now...because the rivet line is just a bit off from what I originally thought, I re-checked my F-711D angle. One thing that was bothering my is that the angle did not nest nicely into the longeron inside radius. Well, I am getting quite good with fabricating these angles so I quickly made a new one and shaped it so that it will nest into the longeron and yet clear the rivet.

I then fitted the new angle and it looks fantastic. Only took my 20min to make a new one. So time well spent.

 

I backdrilled the angle, Deburred and primed. After some dry time I riveted the angle on using my handy alligator squeezer. 

 No I took some time and carefully adjusted everything so that the plane was level on both the longitudinal and lateral axis. This was a tedious process but everything looks great.

 

Now I can begin the process of fitting the aft deck.