Stjohn's RV-7

1 hour
Sneaked (‘snuck’ is not a word) off home to rivet for a bit. Got the right elevator skin riveted up to the skeleton. All that’s left is to roll the leading edges and blind-rivet them together. At some point I’ll have to visit the land of fiberglass, but I want to do all that at once. If you haven’t caught it before, I’m really not a fan of paint, grease, glue, and other liquid/semisolid compounds involved in construction. But good fiberglass skills are an excellent asset, so I just need to buy the gloves, suck it up, and get it done. I still have to put the glass caps on the VS and HS, and I still need to build Rudder 2.0 and wire the strobe into the glass cap for that.

.75 hours
Did some riveting before work this morning. Shattered the dawn stillness with the air compressor, but I got all the E-713 rivets in forward of the spar. I was also able to get the skin on without using any blind rivets, using the method described in the construction manual, which is to rivet E-713 and E-702 together where they overlap inside of the spar and rib, then scooch the skeleton inside the joined skins. So far, it’s turning out well. No smiles and I can’t get a fingernail between the joined pieces near a rivet. I’ll probably go home at lunch and do some as well.
Oh, and fairly minor duh: The mounting brackets for the trim tab servo that I thought I’d lost or didn’t get with the emp kit turned up. They turned up after I’d ordered new ones from Van’s, hiding in a plastic organizer in a cell marked suspiciously: TRIM TAB HARDWARE. I’m going to get the right elevator done and out of my face, then I’ll finish up the left elevator.