Category Archives: Mid Fuselage

Aft Bulkheads

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Time: 10 Hours

I didn’t spend 10 total hours on just the aft bulkheads. This post is a cumulation of several days of building. My girl, T, and I bought a new home and I recently sold my townhome in one day. So that means between flying, building and other stuff I have to pack and orginize all my house stuff. We close on my home at the end of May which is why I’m getting a jump start on stuff. In between boxing and wrapping I get a little RV work done in the Hangar. First up was the big move of the wings to my buddy Glen’s for storage until the house move. We had a UHaul trailer that I moved some left over stuff from Omaha. While I had the trailer we took advantage of it and loaded the wings.   

 The next day I received my smoke kit from Smoking Airplanes and inventoried it. I had bought a few camlock connectors, from Agrimart, that I wanted to see if I could use them to make removal of the tank easier. From the initial setup I think I will be able to make these work.   

  

 Along with the different connections I also had them turn the pump 90° clockwise sonthatbthe output would be facing forward for easier access.  Another package that arrived was from Aircraft Spruce that had my brake master reservoir. The plans call for having one master reservoir and running plastic lines to each of the brake master cylinders on the rudder pedals. The ones I ordered are smaller and thread directly into the master cylinder for each of the brakes. This eliminates having the plastic lines and gives a nice clean look. 

 The only downside I can see with these reservoirs is that it limits the amount of forward movement if you put the rudder pedals in the furthest forward setting. This wouldn’t be a problem for me as I will most likely use the second or third setting which give me plenty of movement.  So I grabbed the rudder pedal assembly and installed the master reservoirs. Once I was happy with how they looked I installed the rudder pedal assembly into the forward fuselage. 

     Moving on the next task was to install the aft upper bulkheads.  Before I could do this I needed to take care of two tasks, the passenger shoulder harness connection points and the tiedown ring guesset. The harness attach points are pretty easy as you really just need to clean up the edges and carve out some of the end material to allow them to sit flush with the underside of the aft skin whil overlapping the bulkhead flange.  

   The tie down ring gusset was next. This gusset if structural support behind the passengers backrest bulkhead and the upper longeron. You also have the option of putting in a tie down ring storage in this spot. This is for the Van’s tie down rings that are meant to be removed before flight and stored here. If you can remember I went with smaller aftermarket ones that can stay in all the time. I still went ahead with the plans just in case I ever wanted the bigger rings I would have this done now. I bought som 3/8″ thick bar stock from McMaster Carr and cut and drilled per the dimensions. I then grabbed my tap set and tapped for 3/8″-16 threads needed.  

     Before riveting those in-place I put them on the bulkhead and matched drilled the longeron’s.  

   A couple days later I was finished with priming, painting and riveting all these parts.  

         Next I installed the upper flap moter bracket and installed the flap moter. I didn’t instal the lower end as the floors are not in yet.  

 From there I wanted to see if I needed to trim the bottom of the VS at the forward end. Some builders, including Glen, had to trim this a little as the skin was in contact with it. I guess I was lucky as mine was just fine.  When I called T to come look at the progress she made me get in a shot. 😀

             As with this entire build I got to take all the parts off including the VS so I could work the up and down travel of the elevators. There are two travel stops, one for the up and one for the down. These limit the travel of the elevator horns and can be adjusted. The forward movement or down elevator has a limit of between 20°-25°. As mine stood with no change I was at 23°. Due to the horns not being matched only the left one hit the stop when you really want both. After discussing this with my buddy I decided it’s not a big deal as it would be very rare if at all that you would got that stop in flight. So I left it as is and worked on the aft or up stop. This one could be hit inflight especially in acrobatics so I would work at it to get both hitting. The final product was to trim the right side of the stop to almost flush and the left about 1/4″ remaining. I angled both sides so that most of the flange of the horns came in contact. I achieved 26.8° with the range between 25° and 30°. I’m happy with this result.  

 Last night I decided to do a little work which consisted of installing the rudder cables. There are two protective sleeves one for the aft exit hole and one for the section that lies next to the passenger foot wells. You start from the aft end and feed the cable through snap bushings and holes in all the bullheads. Before going through the center section you need to secure the end of the protective sleeve to the floor support snap bushing. You drill a small hole in the sleeve and zip tie it to the bushing and bracket.  

 After feeding it through all the holes I went back to secure the aft end with an Adell clamp.  

   Here is a view of the cables running the length of the fuselage.  

   Some of you may notice an error in the last photo…yep I installed the forward sleeve aft of the secure point! It should be forward of that point and go into the yellow center section there by protecting the cable for the foot well. Not a big deal and I just cut the zip tie’s and slid them forward, put a new hole in that end and re zip tied them.  

   So that’s my multi day post. These next 5 weeks will be spuradic as I close on my home in 3 weeks and close on our new home in 5 weeks. That means reduced a Hangar time and a couple of weeks of no hangar time when we are homeless! I’ll try my best to keep you updated.  

Elevator’s Installed

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Time: 6 Hours

I got started today by retrieving the elevators from my storage so that I could install them and drill the horns. Before startinging I removed the VS so I could clean, debur, scuff and prime the forward spar attach bracket and spacer. When that was done I grabbed the left elevator and put it in place with my temporary pins. I needed to trim the elevator skins where they met the counterweights of the elevator.  I marked them and cut the skins and filed it down to a good edge.  I repeated the process on the right side. 

      Next I needed to trim the lower flange of the rear spar on the HS to allow for clearance on the elevator horns. 

 I marked the flange with a sharpie and then removed both elevators and the HS from the fuselage. I also removed the hinge so that it was not damaged during the cut.  I needed to be real careful when I cut this so that I did not damage the spar support bar underneath. I grabbed a scrap piece of .025 and drilled a hole so that I could Cleco it into position to protect the bar.  

 The cat went pretty easy with no damage, I cleaned up the corners, touched up the primer and reinstalled the hinge. 

 I put the HS back into position and rebolted it down.  Next up was the process of drilling the bolt hole through both horns of the left and right elevator for the center hinge bearing. This bolt is a 1/4″ AN4 but I would start with a #40 hole. To get the whole centered I used a drill bushing that I bought from McMaster-Carr that had an O.D. of 1/4″ and a #40 I.D.  I did have to sand down the outside edge just a little to get it to fit inside the bearing. I did this by chucking the bushing in my drillpress and using sandpaper as it turned. 

   I reinstalled the left elevator only so that I could drill its horn. The process is fairly simple, you just need to put the elevator in line with the HS by clamping the counterweight so that it is even with the HS.  

   Once it’s in place in aligned I slid the bushing back in the bearing and slid it tight up against the elevator horn.      I grabbed my 12″ #40 drillbit and drill the hole in the horn. 

 I removed the elevator and enlarged the hole with a #19 drillbit followed by my 1/4″ reamer.  

 I repeated the process on the right side.  

 I grabbed the AN4 bolt, nut and a few washers to attach the elevator horns. There is a gap between the horn and the bearing and it varies due to the welding. You just use a combination of washers to fill the gap. I ended up with 3 washers on the left and 2 and 1 thin on the right.  

 Putting these washers was made easy with my washer wrench set I bought last year.  

 With the bolt tightened down I was able to move the elevators together which was pretty cool.   

       A very common thing is to have the elevator horns be off a little as the welding process can vary from lot to lot. Mine was no different from other builders  

   The bottom of the horns is where the elevator controls connect via a rod end. The measurement is 3/8″ up and 3/8″ back to give good edge distance. You just choose the aft most horn for these measurements. That way the edge distance on the other horn is even better. In my case the right horn was the aft most one. I marked the whole and drilled a #40 hole and followed that with my 3/16″ reamer. Since there is a gap between the two horns the plans how do you make a wood drill spacer to help align the drillbit for the other horn. I grabbed a piece of oak and sanded it down to just fit between the two horns which was approximately 7/8″. I drilled a #12 hole in the wood block and slid it into place with a clamp. 

 I used that would block to drill the left horn to match the holes.  Now they are ready to connect to the elevator controls. Before that can happen I needed to put the center control tube in place. This tube will rotate left and right to control the ailerons and will house a control are in the center for a forward and aft movement to control the elevators. It was a little tough getting it into place through the center section rectangular hole. Once it was through I added the rod ends to it and temporarily bolted them in the supports.  

   It was getting late so that’s where I decided to call it a night.l after another great day in the hangar. 

Oil Can Fix and Flight Controls

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Time: 5 Hours

I started the process of fixing the oil canning on the aft bottom skin. I bought some .032 3/4″ x 3/4″ angle from Van’s to take care of this problem. I measured and cut the angle to fit between the two bulkheads with an 1/8″ gap at each end. I cleaned up all the edges and clipped the top corners on the vertical sides to a 45°. I then used my rivet lay out jig to get a proper spacing for the rivet line. I drilled all those and then matched drilled them to the skin, cleckoing as I went. After all the holes were drilled I dimpled, scuffed and cleaned the angle. I had to use my blind rivet pulled dimple dies to get the skin holes.  I primed the angle and cleckoed it into position for when I had bucking help which came in the shape of my beautiful girl, T! This was her first time helping buck and did a perfect job and was a natural!  Did I mention I’m a lucky guy? #outtamyleague

       I finished up the work on the two sections of the pilots seat ramp along with the two ramp end ribs. They were deburred, scuffed, cleaned and primed before riveting the nutplates. I then put the parts in place to see how they looked with just a couple of screws. I Also cleckoed the floor section of the seat back hinge in place from the bottom side. Since these parts where in place I had to grab the seat back to see how it looked.  

I threw a towel in to give a little cushion so I could make a big milestone, sitting in my RV-8! 

 WOW! That was a cool feeling.  So I continued on with the progress and started working on the flight control parts. First up was to make the two tubes that would connect the pilots and passengers control sticks to the elevators. The first goes from the elevator to the bell crank and the second goes from the bell crank to the control sticks. I cut the tube for the first one with the measurements from the plans. I needed to mark marks for eight rivets around the end to hold the rod ends in place. I used a piece of paper with equal marks as a template to mark the tube.  

 I inserted the ends and marked them with the paper template. I used the drill press to drill the holes on both ends. Before disassembling them I marked the ends/tubes with a sharpie so I could put them back in the correct position. Scuffed, cleaned and primed the tubes were ready to be assembled and riveted. They went fast with my pneumatic rivet puller.  

 Next was the tube that goes from the bell crank to the controls. I used the same technique as the previous tube.  

 I turned to the bell crank itself and cleaned up the edges of all the parts followed by scuffing, cleaning, priming and riveting.  

   The control sticks are bolted into a central tube which allows the pilots and passengers to move in unison. Each control stick as a brass tube that acts as a bearing allowing it to move freely. I had to grind down these brass tubes to fit between the two side of the control column. The sides have a slight angle to them so you need to try to replicate this on the brass tubes which was a little difficult. That didn’t take too long to get both of them done and I both of them in place to see how they looked.  

   The rear stick is in two pieces and is supposed to get bolted together, however I am going to use a button pin from Jergens manufacturing which will allow the stick to be removed easily in the event that I don’t want the passenger to have access to the controls. I ordered that pin this week and should have it in a few days. Now to disassemble all these parts scuff, prime and paint the ones that will be visible.

Foot Wells and Fuel Valve

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Time: 3 Hours

I had a company event in Omaha this last weekend that prevented me from doing a lot of hangar work but I did get to spend some time on Sunday. My goal was to finish up the seat floors which was just the forward floor and the foot wells as wells as the left and right side console covers. I started with the foot wells by scuffing, cleaning and priming all the parts before riveting. I was able to get to all the rivets with my 4″ yoke on the pneumatic squeezer. I then riveted the left and right foot wells to the forward floor. I placed the whole assembly in place to check the fit. I cleckoed the seat back hinge in place, I’ll rivet that later after painting. 

  

  The next task was to fit the left and right side panel covers. These lower panels will be along side my thigh area and the left houses the fuel selector valve. I removed parts of the valve substructure so I could get good measurements for drilling a pilot hole dead center of the valve stem. Once I was happy with that placement I drilled the hole larger to an 1 1/8″ to fit around the valve stem base. With that hole finished I was able to place the cover in its spot and put a few screws in to hold it. There are two #19 holes in the cover that need to be used to match drill the mid longeron for nut plates. With those drilled I removed the cover and cleaned up all the holes. Using a nutplate as a guide I drilled the nutplate rivet holes and countersunk them for flush rivets. I found that riveting these rivets was very difficult due to the structure around them. I was unable to use a gun and bar so I had to use the squeezer the best I could. What I ended up with was the rivets sitting proud of the countersink a little. I decided that drilling these out would be a huge pain and adding potential for screwing up other things like the paint. So I left them as they are knowing that they aren’t structural and just there to keep the nutplate from turning. They are secure just not pretty, the good thing is that they are never seen as the cover does just that, cover. I moved over to the right side and did the same stuff minus the fuel valve stuff. I think I will eventually put a cup holder in this cover. Before I cleaned up shop I grabbed the fuel valve cover plate and valve handle to see how they looked.  

   

Floor Mod Assembly

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Time: 4 Hours

I started the scuffing, cleaning, priming and assembly of the floor mods yesterday. Since I had a lot of fabricated parts that all look similar I decided to work in one at a time to avoid having the parts get mixed up. I started with the right side scuffing and priming. When I had those parts done and dry I got the back rivet set and pneumatic squeezer out and started riveting. The middle support angles needed the back rivet set and I was able to get all the mod support structure with the squeezer. I finished all the rivets without any difficulty and moved on to the angles on the door with the back rivet set. I then measured and cut the hinge pin and added a 90° bend in the end. I also added a little bend at a 90° to the first bend to allow the pin to sit flush with the door as the hinge sits a little below the door.  I also received my CamLoc’s that I ordered from Aircraft Spruce, I ordered the flush heads since these will be under carpet, and put them in temporarily to hold the door shut.  I was real happy with how everything turned out and will plan on delaying the painting of the floors until the last minute as I will be putting these floors in and out several times and figured they would get scratched up.    

  

  

  

  

 In between  priming sessions I grabbed the cabin heat cable and slid it into position.    

     

On to the left side!