Empennage – Page 8

Back Riveting

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 2 Hours

My flight schedule changed this week so I was able to get in the hangar yesterday for a couple of hours. The plan was to get the rudder stiffeners riveted to the rudder skin. You have to do this task before bending the trailing edge of the rudder skin, otherwise you would have no room to rivet. The best practice to rivet the stiffeners is to back rivet. Back riveting has you use the rivet gun on the shop head (the end of the rivet that you are smashing) using a special back rivet set in the gun.

The process begins with placing the rivets in their holes and placing a special tape over them. This tape is sticky on the edges and not in the middle and allows the rivets to be held in place.

You then turn the work over to expose the ends of the rivets and place the second piece to be riveted over the rivet ends. You then place a back riveting plate, a 3/8″ thick piece of steal that has been machined smooth, under the work. This steal supports the rivets as you rivet the shop head.
Once you finish the row of rivets you can then remove the tape to reveal a nice clean line of rivets. It took me just at two hours to get both sides done with several breaks in there. Next up will be to bend the trailing edge of the rudder, I will get the help from an expert for that job.

More Stiffener Work

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 2 Hours

Two hours today taking care of all the little details on the stiffeners and the rudder skin. All the edge finishing on the stiffeners is done along with all deburring, including the VERY thin skins which I did with my fingers. I then dimpled all the stiffeners and skins. Last up as to prime the stiffeners and let them dry. My flight schedule has me gone until Friday followed by a weekend with my kids, then off to Boise for 5 days to help out with our crew that’s based there. That means I won’t be doing any work on the RV-8 for a week and a half, boo!

Rudder Stiffeners

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 4 Hours

I added a track on my wall to add some different hooks so that as items got finished I could hang them for storage.

Once I got all my errands done I was able to get a little over 4 hours in the hangar. First up was to trim the stiffeners for the rudder. There are 16 stiffeners, 8 on each side of the rudder. Van’s sends 5 pieces of thin angle aluminum. Each piece has several stiffeners laid out by pre-punched holes. The plans have you draw lines between two holes which outlines the the individual stiffeners.

Once a rough cut is made I then drew the lines to be cut on the bandsaw.

Next up was to take each stiffener to the scotch-brite wheel and shape them to the right shape.

Then I set half for the left side and half for the right side. Then they got cleco’d to the skin. Tomorrow I will get to match drilling and prepping(deburring, dimpling and priming) so that they can be riveted.

VS Done

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 4 Hours

I got to work with the last couple of rivets for the VS forward spar. The next step has you cleco the skin on and begin to rivet starting at the center on the forward spar/center rib and work your way out. Then you work around the edge riveting the upper and lower ribs. Once that is done I inserted the rear spar and finished riveting it in place. I was able to use the squeezer for most of these rivets and finished up the rest with the bucking bar/rivet gun.
Next up the rudder!

VS Spar Work

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 4 Hours

I finished up dimpling the VS skin using the DRDT-2 which makes quick work of that process. Then I touched up the skin with some scotch-brite pads to remove any marks I made while dimpling. Next up was to prime the inside of the skins. You really don’t have to do this as the ribs are primed and have enough protection, but I figured a little extra protection can’t hurt and I like the color.

Then the work started on the rear spar. Riveting began on the spar, spar doubler and the hinge brackets. The lower portion of the spar required AN426 flush rivets since this is a mating surface for future attachment to the fuselage section.

Next up was to get the forward spar riveted to the ribs in prep to be inserted into the skin.

When I was done with the work in the hangar I decided to do a little rearranging in the house to make room for a little more permanent hanging space for my completed parts. I was worried that if I tried to store them in the hangar they would get damaged as space is limited. I have a nice wide hallway that has a large blank wall just calling for some cool aluminum!