Stjohn's RV-7

10 hours.

This Sunday was a huge day. I got up the nerve to put the wings on for alignment and some other ops that necessitate having the wings mounted. The way this works is that the wings are some thin aluminum skins wrapped around a thin aluminum skeleton that’s attached to a thick, beefy wing spar. The end of this wing spar sticks out at the root and slots into the thick, beefy center section of the fuselage. This is held in place by a fistful of close-tolerance bolts. For this fitting, I’m not using the close-tolerance bolts, I’m using drift pins made from 7/16″ hardware store bolts, like so:

You can see here I made 8. I only need four, so if anyone needs some 7/16″ drift pins, holla. With these, the threads get cut off the end, then the end gets rounded. Then the wing spar finds its way into the center section and these go into the attach holes.

Not sure how much you remember about the configuration of my workspace, but one thing of particular interest is that the patio door is too narrow to accept the fuselage of an RV-7. I found this out way back when I took delivery of the QB kit, and just as then, I had to take the patio door off. Sliding glass doors suck. And they’re heavy. And they only get worse with each consecutive removal and reinstallation, so I’m looking at options, but that’s a digression.

I didn’t have the fancy lift-dolly the driver had when he dropped off the kit, so I had to fall back to that ubiquitous artifact of modern suburbia, the furniture dolly. I got the last two from Home Depot yesterday, and extended them with some scraps of furniture-grade plywood we had left over from a project. Fortunately I can still lift the canoe on my own, which I did while Shelley wrangled the dolly under the sawhorse up front. The back end was much easier, since it doesn’t weigh much at all.

sliding door off, fuse on wheels. Don’t get too comfortable, Simba. You’re on the taxiway.

We did it! Shelley’s happy to see this thing out of her craft room, even if only temporarily. But now we have a problem. Those wooden planter boxes to Shelley’s right are in the way of getting the left wing to where it needs to be for fitting.

That just ain’t gonna happen. So the planter boxes need to go. Shelley wanted to take them out anyway, to give us more yard. Well, dirt at the moment, but yard eventually.

So Shelley and I demolished the planter boxes. Chicks with air tools are teh hawt!

Here’s one with the left wing on. Hey. Psst. Did you forget anything? Oh yeah! Drawing 38, cut down the rear wing spar tabs as shown, so there’s enough clearance to set sweep and incidence. Left wing came off shortly after this photo and the appropriate adjustments were made.

Yeah! Now the fun begins. Measure, level, measure again, level again, measure some more, drill.

Take note, chickens. This machine here is the only way either of us will take to the skies, and the only way you’ll be using this one is if you’re in the middle of a sandwich or deep-fried in a bucket.