March 29, 2009

I'd like to say that I got alot done this week. I did, but it had nothing to do with building an RV-8. I flew all week, took care of some other obligations, did some family stuff, and spent a bit of time re-organiziing my work area. I also did some touch up painting to the primer on the horizontal stabilizer and pulled out the vetical stabilizer parts. Laid them out on the workbench. Looked at them for a bit. Looked at them for a bit more. Turned the light off and will be back next weekend to start playing with them. Get to fly again all this week. Here's a photo of the vertical stabilizer parts laid out, with the 99.9% completed horizontal stabilizer in the background. I'll need to carefully prep that part for storage after it is completely done.

We will see what we can get done next week. April 5, 2009

Dove into the vertical stabilizer this week, though it really was only Thursday night for a couple of hours and a couple of hours on Saturday. Many other things to keep me busy, so it was just enough time on the project to keep it interesting. Here is where I started...the vertical stabilizer is simpler than the horizontal, and only half as big. Here are the components laid out. The thicker piece of aluminum with the holes in it is spar doubler for the aft spar:

Here are some of the parts as I was doing some edge finishing and fluting. At the upper right, one of the hinge bracket sets is clecoed to the spar doubler and spar in preparation for match drilling.

Here is the basic framework clecoed together for match drilling...two spars, three ribs...should be fairly simple if one reads directions carefully...

And here is the one piece skin wrapping around the clecoed framework, again for match drilling.

And here it is all drilled out and ready to be taken apart for preparation work...dimpling, deburring, edge finishing, priming, and then put back together for good with rivets.

And another view....just because.

And then I realized I made a major mistake because I did not read the instructions as well as I thought I had. When I was countersinking the spar for some flat rivets called out in the plans, it occurred to me the spar material was a bit thin for counterskinking. When I checked the plans I realized I should have dimpled this part and countersunk the holes on the spar doubler. What a way to end a session...with the first major screw-up. Bummer. I can't salvage the part...you can't put the metal back, or so I've been told. So, I call Van's tomorrow and order a new VS-803PP for the princely sum of $18.00 plus shipping, and then next weekend do the holes correctly and match drill this part back in with the others. Fine way to end the day, eh? So, here is how not to do it:

April 19, 2009

Okay, two weeks went by....went flying for a week and then had some family things going on. In the meantime, my replacement VS-803PP showed up, so I took some time this past week to re-match drill that part, and then correctly dimpled and countersunk the spar and the doubler piece. Now, I was back to where I was two weeks ago.

So, I then dimpled all the ribs and spars, and then dimpled the edge of the vertical stabilizer skin, that part I could get to with the pneumatic squeezer.

Here is the forward spar (with the doubler in place) and the aft spar dimpled and countersunk and edge-finished and deburred...almost ready to go.

Then I grabbed my oldest son, Adam, who helped me dimple the interior holes on the skin....having two people really helps when using the DRDT-2 dimpler (which I do have), or probably a C-frame (which I don't have) also. The second set of hands minimizes skin scratches as one hunts for the hole with the male part of the dimpler set. Those male parts will get you evey time.

Then, it was off to the paintshop (garage floor) to do a bit of rattle can priming.

I'll let the paint cure for five days, then hope to do some vertical stabilizer riveting...maybe even finish the thing, next weekend. Time will tell.

May 10, 2009

Well, things have a way of happening in a surprising manner. My wife's mother passed away very unexpectedly on April 20, the day after the last posting, and so our family did some traveling and spent a week or more in Southern California. Obviously, nothing done on the airplane for the better part of two weeks. I got back into a few times this past week, and the vetical stabilizer came together quickly once I was able to spend a few hours on it. I clecoed the framework together and started riveting. Most of it was done with the pneumatic squeezer, so it went pretty quickly.

Here is the rear spar riveted together, with flush rivets used on the lower postion where it will later butt against the fuselage bulkhead.

And, here is the frame in the process of being riveted together. Didn't take too long to finalize the frame.

Once that was done, the skin is clecoed onto the framework, less the rear spar that is added once the interior skin riveting is completed. This allows access to get a bucking bar on the skin rivets that need the rivet gun to set them.

The flush rivets I set with the rivet gun went much better on the vertical stabilizer than they did on the horizontal. Part of the reason was dropping the pressure on the rivet gun, partly doing away with "protective" duct tape on the flush rivet set (didn't like that a bit), and partly because of experience gained. Once the interior skin rivets are done, the rear spar is attached, and the edge skin rivets can be done, this time with the pneumatic squeezer. Three pop rivets are used to attach the interior rib to the rear spar; all others are squeezed. Here is the vertical stablizer about done, with me touching up the primer a bit.

And another view of me touching up the primer. After this was done, I added two coats of a gloss grey enamel to what will be the rear of the stabilizer where the rudder attaches. It will look better when done.

So, all that was left after that was to pull the blue protective plastic film off and clean it up a bit. Looks pretty good to me.

On to the the rudder, the first of five control surfaces to be built. But first, this coming week will get me reaquainted with a big rudder, that of the DC-3. Yep, I need to go do a bit of tail wheel brushup, this of the DC-3 variety as I get to go play with that beast for bit. My employer has made that opportunity available to me, so I will do some flying with real piston engines, these of the 1,300 hp. variety.

Someone told me recently that you can tell when a DC-3 has flown over because eveyone on the ground is covered with flecks of oil. Yep.