Category Archives: Fuselage

Time: 8 Hours

Today started all the match drilling of the gear towers. There are a lot if holes and it takes a while to hit every one. I then grabbed the countersink to hit one rivet hole on each tower. These holes are under the edge of a bracket that get riveted later. I have read where guys have missed this step and have to drill out later.

Like the change in rudder pedals for the pilot I added the option for the rear seat rudder pedals. I knew that the bracket will get bolted to the gear towers so I grabbed that bag and looked at the instructions. It’s nice to read ahead as these normally get added later as an after thought and you have to drill in a tight spot. I’m able to drill the matching hole with everything apart which makes it a ton easier. Here is what the bracket looks like installed with one hole that they provide. You have to drill the second by using the existing holes.

As with everything else after you get it all together you take it all apart to deburr all the holes, scuff, clean and primer.

I spent the next several hours scuffing and cleaning the right side tower and started the priming on those parts. In between the coats of the primer I started the dismantling deburring of the left side. I finished priming both sides and let them dry for an hour while I ran to do an errand. When I got back I started the riveting on the right side. I did all the rivets I could do with the pneumatic squeezer since it was getting into the evening and didn’t want to bother my neighbors with the rivet gun. I also riveted all the nutplates on for the access plate.

Another great day in the Hangar!!

Time: 8 Hours

Today started with a few work related tasks and a couple of errands. When I got home I got right to the Hangar for some more work. First task to rivet the cooling ramp stiffener in place and the cooling ramp attach bracket to the forward floor substructure. The stiffener was done with the back rivet set and I was able to get the others with the pneumatic squeezer.

After that I moved on to the gear towers. All the parts need to have all the edges deburred as well as all the lightening holes. That took several hours to get accomplished. Now on to one of the “mods” I will be doing to my RV-8. When the gear tower is completed it is a pretty tight space on the inside. The main gear attach bolts will be housed inside of the tower at its bottom going through the floor to the steel gear legs. You have to check and torque these at a regular interval. Van’s only gives you a stretched circular hole in which to access the nuts for torquing. It’s well known in the RV circles that this is a pain in the butt to say the least. So down the road someone came up with a modification idea that would help this task. Basically it’s a access plate that opens this area up for access. There have been several different styles or mods that various builders have used. I decided to go with what was proven, my buddy Glens style, and did a rectangular panel. This will allow me to use the angle structure for the support and will just replace the stock rivets with #8 nutplates to screw the plate to.

So I took several measurements ant came up with a good panel size. The top will be at a slight angle as the rivets are not matched between the forward and aft sides. This will allow me to have the screw holes in a straight line although at an angle. Once I had the idea on paper I transferred the lines to the panels.

I then made the cuts on the band saw going very slow to make nice straight cuts. My blade made about a 1/16″ gap between each panel but that will be backed by a filler piece behind which will have a couple nutplates in it.

Once I had the access plates cut and cleaned up I needed to fabricate 4 pieces of aluminum to act as backers to the top and bottom of the plate.

With the plate backers done and fitting just right I moved on to the top and bottom pieces of the panel. I needed to mark out 4 rivets on the ends that match up with the access plate. These will be flush rivets and hold the plate backers in place.

I enlarged all the perimeter holes to a #19 that will accept the #8 screws. All of the perimeter holes will need nutplates for the screws to go into. That’s where my new tool, the nutplate jig, came in to play.

I was able to get the 16 nutplates drilled in 10 minutes, man I love this tool! I put all the parts back together and cleaned up the Hangar. That’s 8 solid hours of build time and it was a great day!

Time: 5 Hours

I decided to let the paint cure for a day on the firewall parts. With those parts waiting to be riveted it decided to move ahead and get some of the forward floor section work done. All the substructure got match drilled and deburred. There are several different areas on the floor that get flush rivets and others that don’t. There will also be areas that get riveted now to just the floor and substructure. Other areas will get riveted later with parts of the firewall and gear towers. I studied the plans for a good time making sure I knew just how the layout goes. I marked and dimpled the holes in the floor, making sure to only do the ones that the plans call for. I also marked all the #40 holes for the nutplates that needed to be machine countersunk for flush rivets by marking a CS next to them.

After the floor was dimpled I marked all the corresponding holes in the 2 cross members so that I could countersink them to match the dimples.

I then grabbed the pneumatic squeezer and dimpled all the required holes in the 4 floor ribs.

It takes me a while to visualize the layout if the floor as they show it upside down in the plans since the substructure goes on the underside of the floor. I have to always recheck my work before I actually do it so that I don’t make any mistakes, which takes time! One option for the RV-8 is to have inflight adjustable rudder pedals or ground only adjustable ones. I chose the ground only for a couple of reasons, I didn’t like the looks of the inflight ones and I’m gonna be the only one flying it and won’t have to adjust them very often. As I was looking at the floor section planning my next move I noticed that there were not any rivet holes for the brackets that hold the rudder pedals in place. That got me to do some digging in the plans for how they will be installed. It turns out that the inflight adjustable ones are the standard and the ground ones are a build change. Not a big deal but as I was looking ahead in their plans I found that you would have to drill out a few rivets in different spots to go from universal rivets to flush ones to accommodate the new brackets for the pedals. So with a little planning now on parts that I will be working with on the firewall and gear towers I will save myself some work. Mainly I will just countersink the parts for flush rivets and not rivet those spots until I install the pedals. I makes the parts so that I will remember later.

I now have all the forward floor parts done and ready for priming. I will let the primer dry overnight and will be able to rivet them as well as the firewall structure, if the paint feels cured enough for me.