Category Archives: Fuselage

Seat Backs and Cockpit Rails

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Time: 8 Hours

Today started with work on the passenger seat back. There was a lot of edges that needed deburring including all the relief notches.

    

  

I scuffed, cleaned and primed all these parts.

In between the priming coats I got to work riveting the pilot seat back. I did not rivet the bottom support angle as it also gets riveted to the hinge and I didn’t want to paint the hinge. I will paint those two parts separately and then rivet those parts together.

So I still had time to kill between priming so I started looking at the cockpit rails and how the riveting would go. I grabbed several of my pneumatic squeezer yokes and started mocking up the process. I felt like I had a pretty good plan for the process and decided to start this task. I carefully clecko’d the rails in place so that I didn’t scratch the paint. I then placed painters tape on the areas where I thought I might scratch the edges. I also used back riveting tape over the rivet heads so the squeezer dies wouldn’t scratch the paint.

I started with the rivets over the center section bulkheads. I worked on the left side then the right as I had the squeezer set for the specific length rivets.

I worked my way down the length of the rails taking my time so I didn’t scratch any areas.

      

They all turned out perfect! Hopefully I can keep them looking as good for the rest of the build. I will put some type of padding on these and tape them down to protect them. I then grabbed the seat back support bar plates and clecko’d them in place. I had to think about how I would get to the backs of these rivets as the space towards the top of the brackets is pretty tight. To get the right angle for my hand and my tungsten bucking bar I needed to be inside the fuselage. I grabbed a scrape piece of wood to make a seat across the floor ribs and put all the tools inside for me to reach. I then climbed in and got into position. It wasn’t easy but I was able to get al of them done. I did chip the paint on the right side a little and will have to do some touch up work later.

  

I finished the priming on the passenger seat back and started the riveting.

I did as much as I could with the squeezer and stopped since it was late and the rest of the rivets need the rivet gun and bucking bar. I grabbed the pilot seat back and hung the parts on the rack and painted them for the last task of the day.

Another good day in the Hangar!

She’s on her Legs!

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Time: 8 Hours

So this post is for a few days worth of work over the last week or so since I got back from vacation/flight training. I got back to work in the Hangar this last weekend and the first task was to torque the 9 bolts/nuts on each gear leg. My buddy Glen helped out with this difficult task. The hardes part was getting to the 2 NAS nuts that reside on the outboard bracket of the hear tower. These are in a very tight location and make for fun time working on them. You remember the gear tower mod  I did way back when, well it was for just this task. I found that removing the 2 screws that reside just above these nuts made it a little easier to get the socket on them. After a couple of hours we had all tightened and to their specs. The NAS nuts needed to be set to 240 in/lbs and the rest were to their required bolt specs. The two NAS bolts tighten down the U shaped bracket that holds the outboard section of the gear down. The strength comes from the bridge section of this U shape. So you don’t want the outer legs of this bracket to touch the wear plate before you reach the 240 in/lbs torque. Vans says a minimum .030in gap is allowed. I have read where builders actually had to grind the brackets a little to prevent them from bottoming out before the torque was reached. I did not have this problem, the problem I ended up with was I didn’t get the recommended 1.5 threads showing above the the nut. I got 3/4 to 1 threads showing with the proper torque.

      

      

Now that the RV was on its new legs I decided to tackle the firewall edge sealing. If you remember a post when I reviewed the forward side skins you were supposed to put a layer of ProSeal along the corner of the firewall to create a seal so gas, oil and fumes don’t enter the cabin. I thought this would end up pretty messy and thought I could do a better job later in the build. That time was now so I grabbed the new items I bought just for this task. I ordered a 4″ x 3/16″ nozzle from Sky Geeks website and a tube of ProSeal from Aircraft Spruce.  I clipped the straight end of the nozzle to a 45° to make the application a little easier.

Here you can see the light shining thru the holes in the relief notches in the firewall. This is looking forward from inside the cabin.

I used the Semco gun to lay a nice clean bead of ProSeal along the seam from top to bottom thanks to the small thin nozzle.

  

The next day I grabbed the Andair fuel valve and the structure I built to support it. I left the inboard 2 holes at 1/8″ as I knew that the placement would move a little after the side skin was riveted in place. After placing the structure in place the holes were pretty close, so I open them up with the #19 drill bit for #8 screws. Now that those holes were matched I remove the structure and put two nutplates on the ends of the structure for the new holes. I also countersunk the holes on the left cabin mid braces to accept the #8 screws holding this structure so that they would lay flush.

  

I then finished replacing the fuel system parts that were removed to rivet all the skins.

I also put the battery rack with its support parts in place.

  

To continue with the build you start with the cockpit rails (sills) and rivet them in place. I had painted these prior to heading to flight training but they got a little fuzzys on them. So I sanded them and repainted them last week. As soon as I sprayed them they bubbled up and created orange peel. I have no idea why Rustoleum does that after 2 weeks but it did. So I grabbed the MEK and stripped them bare and restarted. So they turned out great this time and will let them cure for several days before riveting them. So I skipped ahead to the next steps which are the two seat back structures. I started with the forward seat back and separated all the parts followed by deburring all the edges.

  

The two holes at the bottom of the seat back are for the seat belt attach points to stick thru. You have to remove part of the tabs that are inside of these holes.

I then scuffed, cleaned and primed the parts. I will rivet all the parts together next. These parts will not be used in the final airplane as I plan on using an after market interior by Clasic Aero which incorporates this structure inside its seats. But I will have these to put in during aerobatics when I will be wearing a parachute and need the extra room eliminating the cushion on the back. These seatbacks attach to the floor with a hinge, so removing the hinge pin allows for the back to be removed very easy.

Gear Cover Plates

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Time: 2 Hour’s

I always say any time in the Hangar is good time! I wasn’t feeling the greatest after I got home from work, allergies kicking in. But this afternoon I got a little time in the shop. I wanted to finish up the cover plates for the bottom of the landing gear attach points. Not too much work just cleaned up all the edges and trimmed the outboard edge to to clear the landing gear and primed the interior side.

The next thing I worked on was to make the extensions for the fuel vent lines. These will extend thru the plates and allow the fuel to vent overboard.

I will eventually finish off those vents with some type of mesh bonded to the end to prevent bugs from getting in. That was all the work I did for the day, but any work is good work.

Bottom Skins Done

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Time: 6 Hours

I got back from my 2 week trip, 1 week in Vegas/California and 1 in Tucson for my 6 month flight training and checkride. The first couple of days back were given to cleaning house, doing laundry and finishing errands. My girl is moving to Chicago with me from Omaha next week so I had to prepare the house for her and some of her belongings. After that stuff was done I planned a breakfast with my buddy Glen for this morning. I am so lucky that he is always willing and able to come give me a hand when needed! I was at the stage of needing to rivet the bottom skins in preparation for attaching the landing gear. We first started with the forward crossmember and riveted it to the forward floor as those rivets will be covered up by the bottom skins. Next up was to rivet the two forward bottom skins. Before that could be done you need to deal up some of the edges where the floor meets the firewall to prevent any oil, gas or fumes from entering the aircraft. I mixed up some ProSeal and sealed all those areas.

We then installed the two bottom skins and riveted all the parts together along the lower longeron. We then did all the holes on the inboard side of the skins. With the skins in place we moved aft and finished up all the holes on the lower longeron followed by the forward flange of the center section. With the center section firmly in place I was able to remove the bolts that I was using as spacers for the wing spar attachment. We then put in al the screws, washers and nuts in all the gear tower skin holes, there were a few that had me swearing like a sailor!

Since the ProSeal was still workable we used it and moved on the the cooling ramp. Same theory is applied to keep bad stuff out of the aircraft by sealing up the contact points. We first riveted the ramp to the firewall and bent it down to rivet the forward edge to the floor.

While I has some ProSeal still available I grabbed the rear seat vent pass thru to seal and rivet it in place. This will help with cold air infiltration and help keep that passenger warmer durning cold flights.

I moved over to the cooling ramp and taped off the side wall and the ramp to create a small opening right along the gap that was at the the ramp/bottom skin joint. I mixed up another batch of ProSeal and filled that gap. I used my finger with a glove on and smoothed the sealer to make a nice filet. After removing the tape I cleaned up any mess I made.

I spent a while cleaning up all the mess we made in the shop as well as all the sealer on the clecko’s. I was going to call it a day but just had to put the gear in place. I was able to get most of the bolts with the nuts except 4. Next week we will get to torquing all the bolts and flip this bad boy back over and let it sit on its legs!

Another great day in the Hangar and wouldn’t have been with out the help of my buddy Glen!

Forward Bottom Skins

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Time : 4 Hours

Today I start work on the forward bottom skins. I had several tasks at hand, besides finishing the edges of the three skins.
The first task was to trim the edge of where the key or access panel will be to make sure it cleared for the newly installed gear brackets and bolts. This Took some time putting the skin on, marking it, removing the skin, removing the material and return in the skin to the fuselage. The plans have you do the step earlier on however since my gear alignment moved aft I needed to readjust this trim.

(null)The next task was to enlarge the 4 holes in the skins that will allow a socket to gain access to the AN4 bolts on the outboard wear plates.

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(null)I then deburred all the holes, enlarged the screw holes to a #19 drill bit and rolled the aft edge of the aft skin. I then grabbed my DRDT dimpling machine and dimpled all the required holes. The inside of the skins got scuffed, cleaned and primed as well.

(null)I ran some errands and let the primer dry for an hour or so. When I returned I started the riveting process. Van’s has you put 2 blobs of blue RTV sealant in the space that is too narrow for a bucking bar to give some skin support on the aft end of the aft bottom skin.

(null)The plans have you rivet the aft ribs first by lifting the outboard edge of the skin while the rib/skin joint is clecko’d. It’s a tight fit but you can do it with a very thin bucking bar. Next you are supposed to remove the forward crossmember as this will give you access to rivet the aft crossmember. Well since I created my battery box on the angled support I had riveted the two nut plates to it, oops. So I could either drill all those out or I could use blind rivets on the 9 holes that I could not access on the forward crossmember. I chose the later! So that meant that I had very limited access to rivet the aft crossmember by lifting a small flap of the skin. That was tough but I was able to get all the rivets done. I then drilled the rivets that would get the blind rivets to a #34. I calculated the thickness and it was at the top range of my MK-319-BS flush rivets so that worked well.

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(null)Thats where I stopped for today as I need a bucking partner to get the aft edge of the skin rivets as well as the forward edge of the forward cross member. The outboard edges of that cross member get covered by the two forward skins and you would have no bucking bar access if you went ahead of this step. After I get help I will be able to rivet the two forward skins and the cooling ramp. Another good day in the Hangar oh and today marks the crossing of the 1000 hour mark!