Michael – Page 66 – RV8-Hangar

Longeron Drilling Finished

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 8 Hours

We got back on our weekend breakfast schedule after the thanksgiving holiday this morning. After reviving my build spirit with my friends I got right back to the Hangar to start the work. Today tasks were to finish up the longeron drilling. I counted 404 holes in the upper longeron alone. I had finished the drilling up to the aft fuselage skins the other day and that’s where I started today. Not a whole lot to say about this other than I spring clamped the skin to the longeron and used my drill cup to keep the drill bit square. I just worked slowly aft as I drilled and clecko’d.

Here is another cool view of the worked I just finished.

I then grabbed the #40 reamer and hit all the holes on the aft bottom fuselage skin on the tail come. There are a couple of holes that need to be match drilled here as well. Here is a couple of shots actually showing me building and don’t laugh at the Croc’s I’m wearing they are the perfect Hangar shoe. 🙂

After the final drilling was done on the bottom skin I grabbed the top of the 4 bulkheads and put them in place.

With those in place I grabbed the top skin and clecko’d it in place.

The top skin really stiffens things up and aligns everything perfectly. The aft deck is next, this is the area where the horizontal stab will sit and get attached. I squared everything up and clamped it in place for match drilling.

Before I drilled I marked the notches on the longerons where the HS attach bars will extend up through.

I also marked out where I will remove some of the top flange of the longerons at the aft end.

There are 2 angles that get attached to the aft deck and the farthest aft one has 2 AN-3 bolts that go thru it so I drilled those to a #19 and final sized them to a 3/16″ with my reamer.

From there I moved up to the cockpit rails. These need to sit flush with the mid fuselage side skins to form a nice joint as they will be seen every time you enter the plane. So I squared the edges up and used some clamps with small blocks of wood to hold them in place as I match drilled thru the longerons.

I worked my way forward lining up the edges as I went forward.

I had to use several clamps to hold the area where the forward side skins overlap the mid side skins to get a clean as possible edge there. I will scarf these skins to help them lay nice.

After I finished both of the rails, which turned out perfect, I moved on to the gear tower tops. These have a flange at the top that needed to be match drilled to the longerons. They don’t sit tight and need to be clamped so that their outboard edge lines up with the corner of the longeron. The plans suggest ratchet straps so that what I did.

With the straps as tight as I could go I used another smaller clamp to help squeeze them together and they lined up great. I then match drilled them and clecko’d them up.

Last thing I did for the day was to clecko the set back roll bar attach brackets to the side walls.

Another great day in the Hangar and got a ton done. I love days like these. The down side was I ran out of 1/8″ clecko’s and will have to remove a few in other places so I can continue. This is a good problem to have! 🙂

Longeron Drilling

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 6 Hours

Well I finally got out to the Hangar for some more work on the fuselage after the thanksgiving holiday. It’s been a couple of weeks since I was able to get some work done. Today I started the process of positioning and drilling the longerons. The first ones to be drilled are the lower ones. The plans call for the extra caution needed to make sure that the drill bit stays square to the skin as you have several layers to drill through in several spots. For that I used a new tool I bought, called a drill cup. This will keep the bit square to the material being drilled.

So with the drill cup I started working on the lover longeron working from the forward end aft.

Then I moved on to the middle “auxiliary” longerons. Before in installed these a while ago the plans had you draw a reference line for the rivet line. Since these kinda float as they sit right now being just held in by the sandwich of the skins and gear towers. You can move them up and down to get that reverence line centered in the line of holes. I was having a hard time getting the aft end down low enough to be centered. The reason was the angled gussets were binding a little. What I noticed was that I had clecko’d the top in the bottom spot and the bottom in the top. Down side to this was I drilled the lower ones already which opened the #40 holes to a #30 that was on the bottom longeron. The top needs #40 holes to match the skins, so I will order some replacements from Van’s.

With the gussets removed I lined up the reference line in the holes and drilled away putting a clecko in as I went.

Now I hit the upper longeron where it met the engine mount on the forward end. I started with the skin side first and then the top side, making sure to stay square with the longeron as it sits at an angle.

From the top engine mount I worked aft along the top longeron drilling and cleckoing the forward skins. I used spring clamps to hold the skin tight to the longeron and to keep the edge of the skin even with the corner of the longeron.

Then I moved to the lower part of the gear towers. There are a number of holes that need to be enlarged to a #19 hole for #8 structural screws. I marked out the 17 holes with a red sharpie and drilled them with a #21 first and final drilled with the #19 bit.

Once that was done I final reamed all the #30 & #40 holes in the forward skin that were not drilled with the longerons. Next I moved in to the mid fuselage skins and upper longeron drilling. I used the same clamps to make sure that the skin and corner of the longeron matched up. Once that was finished I match reamed all the remaining holes in the side skins.

I’m fighting a little bit of a cold and this day went slow but it felt great to be back to building! I cleaned up the hangar and called it a night. Next up will be the aft fuselage drilling and match reaming.

Bottom Aft Fuselage Skin

Posted on November 16, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 3 Hours

I had a little time to get in the Hangar today. The task I wanted to accomplish was to get the large aft fuselage skin clecko’d on. The challenge is that the skin is sandwiched between several parts except the aft end. So you have to slide it in at the forward edge with the aft end lower. Then you can raise the aft end while sliding the sides in between the side skins and the bulkheads. I used a ratchet strap to hold the aft end up but with some space below the fuselage. This allowed me to have a better angle at the forward edge to work it into place.

I then lifted the front edge and started working the the forward edge in. It was a challenge getting the skin between the mid section bottom skins, the curved side skins and the underlying bulkhead flange. Once I got a little bit in I grabbed another ratchet strap around the fuselage closer to the forward side. After working the skin a little I was able to get a couple of clecko’s in place. I then went to the aft end and worked it until I could get a clecko in place on both sides. I went back to the forward edge and made some more connections. Then it was just a process of moving aft along the line of rivets between the side skins and the bottom skin. I followed that with attaching the rear bulkheads to the bottom skin.

I was running out of time but wanted to get the next step done to see how it looked. I had to remove the clecko’s from the top 6 inches of all the side skins from the firewall to the tail. That allows you to pry the skins back a little to get the long top longerons in place.

I then grabbed the longerons off the rack where they were stowed and slid them into place. I was real happy to see that they fit perfectly! The bends that I did seemed to be right on and looked real good. I will do a little tweaking on a couple of the flanges on the bulkheads where they meet the longerons if needed to get them flush with the skins but it won’t be much if at all.

I stopped there to call it a day. Again it’s really fun to see what the final fuselage will look like!

Aft Fuselage Skins

Posted on November 13, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 6 Hours

In preparation for building up the aft fuselage tail cone I needed to debur the two side skins, the large bottom skin and the small aft bottom skin. First I used the soldering iron to remove the blue protective tape from the rivet lines on the exterior side and the entire tape from the interior side of the two side skins.

I than begin the work on the two bottom skins, again working to remove the blue protective film over the rivet lines on exterior side and the entire blue film on the interior side.

with all the edge deburring done I was able to move on and add the lower longeron and middle longeron to both sides skins.

I then added the rear baggage area support ribs and angles to the mid fuselage section in match drilled those holes.

The plans now call for you to add the aft fuselage side skins to the mid fuselage section one at a time. Pay close attention to how the skins line up in relation to other sections. Once you have the side skins in place you can now add four of the six bulkheads. The last thing I did today was to add asked small section of bottom skin to the side skins. This added some lateral stability to the whole structure.

Days like these are awesome! You really get to see the fuselage taking shape. Another great day in the Hangar!

Tail Cone Parts

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 8 Hours

Today started with riveting the seatbelt backing plates to the upper bulkhead.

Next up was to work on the rear baggage support structure including the ribs and rib angles.

Lots of final drilling and deburring with these parts. I next moved on to the passenger lap belt attach points. They have a beefy angle that has to be cut and shaped to attach the seat belt lugs to.

Those three parts need to be riveted together now so I deburred, scuffed and primed them, leaving the tips unprimed like the others so the paint doesn’t get worn off later while in use.

I will paint these gray later as they will be seen in the cabin. I then moved on to the next steps which was deburring the lower aft longeron, the aft middle longeron, the aft tail cone deck and its spacers.

The lower longerons are over 100″ long and took a while to debur the edges. The seat belt attach assemblies get bolted to the lower longeron and needed to be final drilled with the 3/16″ reamer.

So a long day in the Hangar mostly final drilling and deburring but it has got me to the point where I will be attaching the left and right tail cone skins as well as the bottom skins. It is really fun to see this progress.

The next few days will see some neat progress in hoping!

Total Time – 1938 Hours

Empennage Total – 218 Hours
Horizontal Stabilizer – 83 Hours
Elevators – 53 Hours
Vertical Stabilizer – 22 Hours
Rudder – 37 Hours
Fiberglass – 23 Hours

Wings Total – 536 Hours
Wing Structure – 216 Hours
Fuel Tanks – 135 Hours
Ailerons – 53 Hours
Flaps – 42 Hours
Wiring – 11 Hours
Fiberglass – 56 Hours
General – 23 Hours

Fuselage Total – 1184 Hours
Canopy – 124 Hours
Engine: 115 Hours
Cowl – 64 Hours
Firewall – 62 Hours
Firewall Forward – 16 Hours
Forward Section – 285 Hours
Center Section – 57 Hours
Seat Substructure – 27 Hours
Mid Fuselage – 131 Hours
Aft Fuselage – 190 Hours
Wiring – 113 Hours