Unfortunately, I spent more time watching the debate than bulding. I finished rounding the darn corners of the tabs on the aft-most bulkheads. I also riveted nut plates on the center section access cover support ribs.
Riveted together the rest of the F-705 bulkhead. The plans call for leaving out many of the rivets until later, so it didn’t take long to rivet together. One thing to watch for is that there is one rivet on each side of the doubler that goes in before the smaller parts of the doubler.
Deburred one of the bulkheads for a while, and then did some fun stuff. I started riveting together the top of the F-705 bulkhead.
Primed most of the bulkhead parts. I was thinking of doing everything in one batch, but the pile of stuff to prime was getting really big and the sun was shining today.
As it was, I had too many parts. It took a long time to clean and etch everything, and the sprayer clogged 3/4 of the way through. Doing less would have been better, but it’s nice to have it all done.
Spent some time here and there deburring the aft bulkheads. The two aft-most bulkheads are really unpleasant in that the tabs do not have rounded corners. I took an hour to file off the corners on every tab and then debur just one of the bulkheads. To break up the monotony of deburring, I started fabricated the two angles and two bars for the aft bulkheads.
Re-fabricated the F-729C and F-729B angles.
Finished up drilling, deburring, and countersinking the parts for the F-706 bulkhead.
There are some flush rivets on the front of the bulkhead. The bulkhead in theory is thin enough to dimple. However, there are various parts behind it. Some could be dimpled, some would have to be countersunk, and there are 3 layers in some places. To make things easier, I just countersunk the bulkhead and F-730 where needed.
I also had to nibble away at the F-730 and the forward flange of the bellcrank channel and rib for the snap bushings. Todd Moeller suggested a Dremel bit to me a long time ago, and I finally had an opportunity to use it. It rocked. It only took a few minutes each to Dremel, file and then sand the cut outs.
I have two edge distance issues that I’m concerned with, so I wrote to Van’s about it. The first is on the F-705 bulkhead. I cut and positioned the bar doublers as per the plans, but the holes at the very inboard tips of the F-605C bar doublers came very close to the edge. The edge distance is 3/16″ instead of 1/4″.
[Van’s reply:
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 4:45 AM
Subject: RE: Question about edge distances
Dave,
You have made a common error on the doublers for the 705
bulkhead. The edge distance is marginal, but you can keep the
parts. The plane will not self destruct. Carry on and be careful.
Bruce Reynolds]
The second issue is on the F-706 bulkhead. I fabricated all of the angle parts per the plans and clecoed all of the parts together. When I drilled the F-729C angle to the F-729B angle, the hole on the top of the F-729B angle is very close to the edge, about 3/32″ edge distance to the center of the hole.
[Edit: I asked Julie to take a look at this second problem. A second set of eyes always helps. When I marked the position for the hole in the F-729C angle, I measured from the wrong side of the angle. Simple mistake that had a cascade effect. I’ll fabricate new angles.]
We’ll see what they say. I don’t think either is a major issue, but it’s better to check with the experts.
Deburred more of the parts for the F-706 bulkhead and fabricated the parts made out of angle stock. I thought this bulkhead was going to be difficult with the extra rib holding the bellcrank, but it’s not too bad. It just takes a little spatial orientation ability and a few minutes of staring at the plans.
The F-705 parts are now waiting for priming. I pulled out the parts for the next bulkhead F-706 after a bit of hunting around. I started deburring and fluting the parts. These are by far the worst looking parts in the kit so far. They are warped, scratched up, and discolored. It looks like they’ve been sitting on a shelf somewhere for 10 years. Some clean up and primer is definitely needed. After fluting, they lay almost flat. Since only one edge has a flange, the other edge is still kind of wavy. Maybe they straighten out once everything is together. Or maybe they’re just hidden behind the baggage compartment.
Finished up the prep on the F-705 parts by countersinking where needed and drilling the bearing block.