Stjohn's RV-7

3 hours.
Deburred, primed stiffeners, deburred skin edges, primed inside where stiffeners go.
I hate paint days. Paint sucks. I’m constantly struggling with the question of whether or not to prime something, because the process is a space and time-consuming one. A wife gardening and a dog running around outside really don’t go well with paint fumes and overspray. But that part’s done, now I have to do the spars and ribs. I really need to be done with the empennage soon, because the long, dark winter of Saving for the Kit is approaching. It’s not really worth posting pictures, because this step was kind of lame and should have happened a long time ago. I’ll put some up when it’s time to do the trim tab, because that should prove as challenging as any game of tetris.

2 hours.
fabbed stiffeners. Since I havent’ been at it in a while, it took a second to get back into the plans and realize just what I was cutting. You always have to be on the ball, you just can’t blindly trust that the plans are right, that you got all the metal you were supposed to get, etc. Cutting the little short pieces mystified me for a second until i realized that they went near the trim tab on the left elevator. No prob, moving on.

1 hour.
Yeah, I know, i’m being a complete and utter slackbastard. But the HS/Rudder are done (except for the fiberglass), bolts are tight, last bad rivet in the trailing edge was fixed, and now it’s sitting in the rafters along with the VS. So on to the elevators.. I got as far as cleaning up the shop. In the last few weeks/months, there have been many things that have interrupted the build flow, but I’m trying to carve out an hour or so each night. Or a couple of nights a week. I’m also not ready to order the qb kit yet, since I have no idea where i’m going to actually build it.. I still have a tenant and my wife is less than thrilled about having the guest house be an aircraft factory for an indefinite amount of time. Especially since there is plenty of landscape/contractor wrangling to be done.

1 hour.
Wow.. So that took a while, eh? Too freaking long. I suppose I should explain a few things.. Well, one thing in particular. Since we got this dog, it’s been all about thejoys of walking the dog, feeding the dog, taking the dog to the vet, buying stuff for the dog, you get the picture..
Violated my own founding principle. Bad builder. Bad.

Let’s get through today.. Today was actually the day I got back on the horse. Rolled the leading edge and clecoed it into place.

Looks round, and straight.. If that makes any sense.. Piece of copper pipe did wonders. lighter than the recommended steel, too.

This turned out a lot better than the trailing edge. But I havent’ actually drilled and riveted yet, so maybe I’m celebrating before the battle is won.

6 hours.
OK, six hours all totaled, most of which was setting up the most ergonomic and process-friendly way to rivet the skin onto the skeleton. But once set up, it flowed nicely.

Skin riveted on. AEX wedge is just sitting there, not stuck on yet.

This is to show the stiffeners. There were a couple of them that interfered with their counterparts on the opposite skin, so I had to mill them clear of each other. No biggie.

Same here, but the opposite skin. . the red light is my finger over the flash so it doesn’t blow out the
picture.

The lower rib. You can see where the fluting happened, and also the fluting i had to do to the bottom attach strip for the rudder bottom.. IMHO, this is a hack.. Why the rudder bottom can’t be attached like all the other fiberglas pieces is beyond me. Maybe the thin rudder skin can’t be expected to hold it all on its own.

Some pics of the rudder skeleton riveting process.

Riveting the control horn, rib, horn brace and spar together.. Interlocking puzzle. Generating an exploded
view in your head is kind of fun. Until your head explodes.

Riveting the horn on.. They say you can use pop rivets for some of this. I’m going to.

Looky at all this primed crap. Pay no attention to the claw-hammer in the foreground.

Here you can see the fluted 904 rib and one of the rudder-hinge platenuts.

Okay, okay, I wanted to see the rudder skeleton hanging off the VS. Just because

Apparently I wanted to see it more than once.

If you get that reference, I say well met, gunslinger.
Priming sucks. I don’t like liquids, goo, solvents, pigments, etchants, detergents, or lubricants. Primer sucks, and it’s never going to be any different. But at least i like the color of my chosen primer, and my prep/prime/cleanup process has been whittled down to a mere inconvenience than a showstopping chore.
So once everthing was prepped, I primed the ribs, spars, stiffeners, and even that little counterweight. Now on to riveting some stuff.

3 hours
Got all the rudder stuff prepped. The spars and ribs went fairly well. New confidence in metalworking skills has enabled me to attempt things I would have been scared to try before. The coolest thing I’ve learned so far is basically how to undo mistakes. For instance, I managed to bend the rudder spar. Yeah. Bent it. I was being a moron, leaning it against a corner of the workbench and putting some pressure on it to straighten out a ding left by catching the edge on the Scotchbrite wheel and it folded up like a piece of paper. But not to worry, I just bent it back into shape and hammered the flanges straight again with some light flush-set rivet gun action. holes line up, no cracks in the metal, ready to rock. I’d have freaked out big time a couple of months ago.
One thing that did kind of puzzle me was what happened when I dimpled the lower rib. R-904, I think it was. I had the squeezer in the bench vise, like i’ve had it for every dimpling op where the part is handheld, but this time, the process caused the rib to be gently bent outward from fore to aft, like the opposite of fluting. I checked everything. Dimple dies were matched, holes were drilled and deburred, there was clearance between the die and the web. Just plain ODD! So I wound up consulting the VAF board, Dan C, and Van’s, and the upshot was that fluting it back into shape was fine, just keep it from turning out twisted. So that’s what I did.. Fluted the hell out of it. Oh, and BTW, that little trick of bending the flange out so you can dimple it, then bend it back is harder than it sounds. I spent a fair bit of time smithing the rib back into shape after that.

4.5 hours
Drilled/deburred the rudder spars and ribs, finished fabbing r-917, matchdrilled control horn assembly and bottom spar. Fluted and prepped upper ribs. Going to do the counterweight next.. Hope I don’t have to sand it. Lead dust isn’t cool.

Remember that riveter’s tape? the really slick stuff with the outsides adhesive and a clear non-sticky center? Don’t leave it on overnight, or for a couple of days. You peel it off and it leaves the green sticky part on your airplane for you to remove later. These are some of the things we learn the hard way.