Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

Big, fun day. Julie helped me finish off the outboard top skin for the left wing. We really got into a groove doing the riveting. Eventhough this skin had more rivets, we finished it faster. It took about an hour. Adele helped remove the tape I used to protect the skin during riveting.

After that was the exciting step of removing the wing from the stand and putting it in the cradle. Finally!

I finished off the rear spar rivets after it was in the cradle. The rivets right at the root are tough because of the spar reinforcement. I couldn’t get the squeezer to sit on them right, so I shot them with the rivet gun.

We put the next wing structure into the stand. It’s kind of strange to remove a mostly finished wing and then immediately replace it with a just-started wing. Feels sort of like a step backward.

Moving everything around made for a good opportunity to clean up in the garage. I promised Julie that she could put her new car in the garage if she helped consolidate boxes and get rid of some stuff. Mission accomplished. Her car is in the garage… at least until the fuselage kit shows up in a few weeks. I like this shot. The “Ultimate Driving Machine” next to what will be the Ultimate Flying Machine.

After a few weeks of being blocked by waiting to rivet, now I have lots and lots of things to do: put the aileron brackets on the left wing, prime and install the aileron gap fairing and flap brace on the left wing, prime and install the aileron stiffeners, and of course move forward with the right wing. It would be very cool to have the right wing out of the stand by the time the fuselage kit shows up, but I don’t think that is going to happen. Too much other fun stuff happening this month.

Julie was fired up this morning to do some riveting. We finished riveting the leading edge to the left main spar. Then we started in on the inboard top skin riveting. We finished that in one session with a few breaks in the middle. It took about 1.5 hours to do the top skin with both of us working together. After that, I squeezed the rivets on the inboard rib and the rear spar. It is very cool to have this done. The wing is looking awesome!!

Up to this point, Julie has generally done the riveting, and I have bucked. I figured the bucking is less jarring, so I had Julie do that this time. Her smaller hands were also able to negotiate better around the closely spaced wing walk ribs. It took her a while to get an eye for a properly formed shop head, but she got the hang of it.

During some of the breaks, I deburred the lightening holes in the flap braces with a die grinder and mini Scotch-brite wheel.

I also ran over to Home Depot for a few 2×4s and put together the wing cradle, including casters. It went together pretty easy.

Deburred more of the ailerons.

Riveted together the right wing skeleton. Solo riveted the ribs to the main spar and squeezed the rear spar rivets. The rear spar is tricky. Lots of holes to leave empty and lots of different rivet sizes. I smilied a few rivets, mainly when the duct tape on the rivet set was worn out. I generally replaced the tape every 5 rivets, but forgot occasionally. Having the tape covering the business end of the rivet set really helps keep it from slipping off.

Started working on the wing cradle, but realized I need a few more 2×4s.

Also deburred the aileron gap fairing and started deburring the flap brace. I test fit the flap brace to the rear spar, and noticed that it doesn’t fit very well. There are two notches like on the stiffeners, so I think part of it needs to be removed. There’s nothing in the instructions or plans about it. Looking on Dan’s site, I found one picture with that area removed. I guess I’ll go ahead and trim it.

Flap brace is trimmed and partially deburred. With the band saw, belt sander, and Scotch-brite wheel, a trimming job like that takes about 5-10 minutes.

Deburred some of the ailerons.

Deburred and dimpled aileron stiffeners.

Drilled all of the aileron stiffeners to the skins.

Hey there, what’s that? The leading edge already? But I just started on this wing yesterday! Well, I’m kind of skipping around doing stuff where I can while waiting on some riveting assistance.

This leading edge went together much easier than the first one. I think it was a combination of tweaking the little tabs at the leading tip of the ribs and not shoving the skin all the way into the cradle. Kind of working it in and out of the cradle helped. Anyway, I got it done by myself this time without help from Julie.

Oh yeah, and I also finished up drilling the right wing doubler and deburred the edges a bit.

I’ve pretty much run out of stuff to do on the left wing until I get some riveting help, so I started in on the right wing. I went through the wing instructions again from the start. Fortunately, I already did all of the front spar and main rib prep, and rear spar assembly. It was very cool to breeze through 2 pages of instructions checking off the stuff that was already done.

The next step was to cleco the right main ribs to the front spar. I didn’t want to attempt the riveting tonight, so I pulled out the right wing doubler and started back-drilling that from the top skin.

Finished putting in the screws that attach the left fuel tank to the wing. The tank skin is pillowing very slightly. I might try to fix that later by re-dimpling the skin or countersinking the spar flange a little more. Adele helped by putting Boelube on the screws for me. She loves helping on the plane.

I worked on the aileron brackets. I didn’t realize that some of the rivets are flush. I got out the countersink and went to work. They turned out pretty good, but still not perfect. I wish I could get repeatable results with that thing.

I then squeezed all of the rivets holding the bracket parts together. Looking at Dan’s site, it looks like these things used to come pre-assembled. I guess now we get the pleasure of putting them together ourselves. Had to use the mighty long -11 rivets. The brackets feel rock solid and look very cool.