Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

Dimpled the holes around the edge of the left rudder skin with the squeezer. Drilled the holes for the rudder counterweight. Unfortunately, I need a #10 countersink and dimple dies to complete it. I’ll have to order them. I also drilled the aft 3 holes at the top of both skins per the instructions. These technically aren’t needed until fitting the tips, but need to be drilled and countersunk now. Otherwise, I won’t be able to reach them later.

Moved on to countersinking the rudder trailing edge AXE. Made a wood wedge to hold the AXE at just the right angle while countersinking. It’s working great. Did about 1/3 of the holes. I also read ahead a bit to the rudder riveting instructions.

Found out today that the wings won’t be ready to ship until Feb 2. Bummer.

Dimpled holes in the left rudder skin with the C-frame. Smoothed edges of both skins.

Deburred the holes in the other rudder skin. I think it was the left, but it doesn’t matter much when you’re just deburring. All that’s left is to smooth the edges of the skins, countersink the trailing edge wedge, and dimple the last few holes way in the narrow parts of the ribs with the Vise-grip dimpler, when it arrives from Avery. Then it’s ready to prime.

Deburred the holes in the left rudder skin. That was so boring that I had to do something else before doing the other skin. I dimpled all of the spars, ribs, etc. On the rudder, it’s a little tricky to figure out what gets dimpled and what doesn’t. For example, some of the holes on the rudder horn brace gets dimpled, but not all of them–only the ones that are attached to the skin. I also smoothed the edges of all of the skeletal parts of the rudder.

Since I was tired of deburring holes and the new fly cutter arrived, I decided to try making the optional lightening holes in the VS rear spar stiffener. Got it all measured out and ready to drill. Luckily, I noticed at the last minute that I had dialed in the circumference measurement on the fly cutter instead of the radius. I almost made a 3″ hole instead of 1.5″. Here’s the fly cutter in action.

Unfortunately, the fly cutter only goes down to 1.75″ holes. I just used a unibit to make 3/4″ holes instead of the 1.5″ holes. Smaller certainly won’t hurt. Here’s the finished product. Not sure the few ounces I saved was worth all of the hassle, but it was a learning experience.

Deburred lots of holes in the rudder skeleton.

Deburred the rest of the rudder stiffeners. Final drilled the rudder skin to the skeleton. Trimed the horn brace and final drilled that as well. It’s not mentioned anywhere in the instructions and not very clear on the plans, but I had to drill through the skin and bottom rib into the side of the horn brace.

I also made the two strips for attaching the bottom rudder fairing. I marked a line along the long edge 6/32″ in (2X rivet diameter) and also along the slanted edge. I attached the strips with clamps to the bottom rib and skin, lining up my line through the holes, and then drilled them. I’m sure glad these kits are now pre-drilled. It’s time consuming measuring, marking, and doing actual drilling (instead of just final drilling).

Everything is now disassembled and ready for more deburring and then dimpling.

Finally did some more work on the plane after a too long break. The weather was just too cold to work in the garage. So I insulated the ceiling and bought a kerosene heater. With most of the insulation up, the heater keeps it pretty comfortable in the garage. However, the weather did warm up to the 40’s now.

Final drilled all of the rudder stiffeners to the skins. Deburred about half of the stiffeners before the cordless drill battery gave out. I think it’s just too cold in the garage for it (and me). Clecoed together the rest of the rudder skeleton and counterweight skin and final drilled all of the holes.

Clecoed the rudder skins to the skeleton. The instructions say to do this after the stiffeners have been back-riveted to the skins, but it will be a while before I can prime the stiffeners. Shouldn’t hurt to do this one little part out of sequence. The rudder is looking pretty cool.