Stjohn's RV-7

5 hours.
Not 5 hours all at once, by any means. But I did drill the UHMW flap actuator bearing blocks, match drill the flap servo goodies, and began the process of getting it all into the plane. Unfortunately, because I don’t have iLife on this machine, I can’t exactly share the photos I took. Oh well, i’ll post them when I get a chance. Anyhoo, I feel like I’m actually getting aircraft stuff done, and it feels good to be able to work out problems and see how things are going to fit without having to run to VAF whenever I get stopped by some weird thing or other, and my hunches work out more often than not, these days.
I haven’t been putting in a lot of hours, but the skills do keep, if I do a little bit each day. I’ve been trying to do something, anything at all in the mornings before work. I’m able to put in about 45 minutes before I have to go in, and that keeps my head in the game. The tunnel cover coulda been.. Better. But it’ll be fine, since it’s non-structural and serves mostly to keep the occupants’ meaty bits, car keys, cell phones, and sunglasses from fouling the elevator pushrod. Also, it serves to cover up wiring, and that’s probably a good thing. I’ve also discovered that it’s very easy to round out #3 philips head screws if you don’t keep the driver bit seated. After all the fun, the flap actuator seems a little stiff, but well within the servo’s capability. However the center bearing block seems to sit a little high. The plans have you milling off about 1/16 of an inch from the bottom, 1/2 inch back, to clear the lip of the seat floor skin, but in this QB fuse, the baggage floor covers are atop the seat floor skins. This is all fine and dandy, but I think I’m going to file off 1/16 of the lower center bearing block, just to relieve the tension on the weldment a little. Maybe this is unnecessary, but it will make me sleep better. As I’m doing this process, I see the need for future tasks, like where the f am I going to mount the strobe controller, and how will I do it? Right now it’s looking like it’s going on a yet-to-be-fabbed shelf between two ribs under the baggage floor. Of course, this means I have to install platenuts on all those, But whatever, it’s easy and quick if you use the platenuts themselves as drill jigs.
Next weekend, Shelley’s going to be at her permaculture camp in the hills of Acton, so I’ll hopefully be putting in a bunch of hours, and maybe even paint something.

6 hours.
Finished cutting and drilling the seat backs, they are now all put together with clecos and sitting in the plane. Of course, I did Shelley’s first, just to be polite, then mine. I’m almost done with the tunnel cover, but I need to brush up on my measuring skills, because even double checking, it didn’t fit quite right until after I’d worked it with various abrasives and cutters. but that’s almost ready to go. I figure, when i start back in on the project after an absence, it’s best to do small, cheap things to start, off, just to get the chops back. And if theyre things that don’t require drilling or cutting on the QB airframe, even better.
I also cut down my sawhorses to lower the main longeron to waist height, which helps a lot. Originally I was going to have a friend help, but the fuse is still light enough where I could pick it up by the firewall and have Shelley move the cut-down sawhorse under the main spar, then shuffle the original short one back to the tail. Next, I think, is the pedals or the flap weldment.

3 hours.
Just got back from our 4th of July road trip. It was somewhat truncated, due to large parts of Central California having the bad taste to be on fire during our trip. We couldn’t go all the way up Highway One through Big Sur, which is a bummer, because I’ve never actually seen Big Sur in any great detail before. What we did see was the backside of the foothills, where all the wineries and ranches are, and, more importantly, all the little airports that service them. I kept thinking, wow. Horses, woods, vineyards, little airports, and nice weather. What’s not to love? Anyway, to crudely segue back into my build log, that motivated me to do a little work on the plane this weekend. I actually got going on the seat backs again. I re-read the construction manual, and it looks like you’re supposed to do the pedals first, and the seat backs later. It doesn’t look to me like it matters one way or the other, since the seat backs are a discrete and mostly separate part. It matters to me, because once the seat backs are in, i can sit in the canoe and place the pedals exactly to my liking. The manual says to drill some extra holes for the UHMW blocks of the pedal assembly so you can move them back and forth, which is fine, but I’m aiming to start off as close as I can to where I’ll eventually have it.
So what i did was this: I finished cutting all the angle for the seat backs (pain in the arse, no chop saw), and drilled the side supports to one of the seat back panels, also drilled one of the bottom hinges. Now that I’ve done it, I can block out small chunks of time to finish that seat and do the other one. Then it’s probably on to the elevator push tube., then a crapload of painting.

3 hours.
Drilled the stops for the seat backs, and had planned to get more done, but wound up pondering the plans and the manual for most of that time, which I guess is good. I should have stuck to the agenda and just built the seat backs like I planned, since they’re a fairly discrete part of the process, but I went down the rabbit hole when I wondered ‘just how does that flap torque tube go in there?’ It’s a valid question, it’s attached to the same part as the seat back stops, in that it’s all about the baggage compartment bulkhead in that area.

In the above photo you see how the stops are clecoed together. There are two levels of adjustment for the seat back position. There is an angle attached to the aft flange of the baggage compartment bulkhead, which has room between it and the bulkhead for the seat back support, then another piece of aluminum forward of that, lifted by a shim, which provides the second. The first one I did was a little rough, since this is the first time I’ve had to drill upside-down. Important safety tip: Make damn sure there are no gaps between your safety glasses and your eyes. All the chips come right at you or close enough to be hazardous. If I was a D&D dork, I’d say you get -5 luck vs aluminum shavings in this situation.

The photo above is where it got interesting, at least to me. This was the point at which I realized I had to start pulling out the floor panels, which are screwed in on the quickbuild fuse when it arrives. The baggage floor panels and the flap access panels have to go so I can get in there and mount the UHMW bearing blocks for the flap torque tube. This only reared its ugly head because currently my subprocess involves drawings 20 and 23, 20 being the meat of the baggage bulkhead and 23 being the seat backs themselves. This is where going through the construction manual and verifying the build on the quickbuild is key; you don’t want to skip any steps. Not only that, you want to know what all the odd little parts look like when you need them, and if they were supposed to be installed in an earlier step and they’re not, you have to backtrack, and the longer parts are out of mind, the more chances are they’ll get misplaced or miscategorized. It’s all very well and good when you’re checking off the packing list and you know you’ve got everything, but it’s quite another when you have to find something later you haven’t seen in a few months, unless you’re frighteningly anal about how you store everything.

This is just a gratuitous overhead photo showing the new shop layout, sans wings. Sort of. Note how much room i’ve got to work now.

2 hours.
That’s a guesstimate, since I did a few little things over the last week. I started a new job last Monday, and the hours are usually 10-7, so I have some time to build in the mornings. The weekend was spent moving the wings into the garage, and rearranging the fuse so I have more room to work on it. I moved my rollaway toolbox and saw/grinder table into the shop as well, and I was able to unpack my ‘survival kit,’ that being all the tools I had crammed into my small toolbox to do the work on the wings. All the tools are now back in the rollie, and it’s nice not to have to dig for things I know are there or make trips back and forth to the garage when I want to scotchbrite-wheel or bandsaw something. What I managed to do on the actual airplane was rivet the elevator bellcrank and install it in the aft fuse. I also got some work done on the seat backs, like cutting the angle metal and finding all the parts I’ll need to fabricate the assembly. The process just got a little more interesting. Since I got the quickbuild kit, I essentially skipped right over the transition phase from handholding to here’s-the-plans-get-on-it. In a way it simplifies things a bit, because at this point, the construction manual pretty much just tells you to look at a drawing, make or prep all the parts on it, and go to town. Drawings, I get.
Another thing that was interesting is how low the part count seems when you take out all the bagged and boxed items necessary for things like seat belt cables, brake cylinders, trim servos, and other things I tend to categorize as ‘fiddly bits’ at the moment. Now, at this point, I think I’m going to take another non-build day and organize all the various bits and pieces like I should have done when I got the kit. I marked it all off on the packing list, but I did not build a bunch of shelves and drawers and file everything. I’m going to do this as soon as I can, because if I have to sort through a bunch of undifferentiated stamped aluminum bits to find what I’m looking for, I’m going to get cranky. I think the best way to organize all this stuff is by drawing number, if possible. I’ll have to work out a good methodology for it this weekend. Shelley’s parents are in town so I probably won’t get to build much, but I might get an hour or two somewhere.
Probably what’ll happen is I’ll get the seat backs and elevator pushrods prepped, then set it all aside for a paint morning, but before that, I have to cut down the sawhorses to lower the plane to working height.
I’ll shoot some pics of the shop next chance I get, maybe tomorrow.

So we’re moving along with the guest house, working at our pace, when I get a call. It went something like “I have an aircraft for you. I’ll be there first thing in the morning.” Naturally, I choked, because the main room of the guest house wasn’t done. So last night, Shelley and I went to the Depot and got 100 or so feet of baseboards and molding, and 300 plastic garage floor tiles, the result of which, is this:

In the foreground there is a modified Bingelis wing stand, modified in that I used 2×6’s instead of 2×4’s and a 4×4, beause that’s what I had lying around. The plywood was scrap from the guest house bathroom remodel.
Today, my friend David stopped by to lend a hand moving the big beast(s) into the space. We had to clear out the garage and remove the sliding glass doors so the fuse could be moved on through and the final result was this:

This one capture the “am I stoked or scared?” look.

I have no idea what I’m digging around for in here. Maybe just trying to find the bottom under all the paper.

Here’s Shelley, reflected in the fuselage… Much love and respect to her for the help and the support!

Still some work to do on the guest house, but something tells me I need to get cracking on this plane… Like right now.

Fuselage progress here