Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

I spent most of the day trying to get the labels to stick to the panel. Out of the first batch of 5 labels, 2 actually turned out good. When they work, they really look great. There’s a small halo of glue around the labels, which I easily removed with rubbing alcohol.

The next two batches were not so successful. It’s really frustrating to put an hour in on a batch of labels and have them all look great until the last step. They just don’t want to stick to the rough texture of the powder coating. In retrospect, I started spraying less glue on the panel for the later batches. Maybe that was part of the problem.

Out of 20 some labels so far, only 2 have worked. That’s not a good percentage. And I’ve burned maybe 6-7 hours on it. I wish there was another way to make great looking white labels, but I haven’t found it. I’ll talk to Frank at Pulsar again and give this method one more try. After that, I’ll use masking tape if I have to. I’ve burned way too much time on this.

In order to feel like I got something meaningful accomplished today, I asked Julie to help me drill the wing tips. They turned out quite good. There’s a 1/32″ gap in the middle of the top of one of the tips that I’ll try to reduce when I drill out to #30. Otherwise they turned out great and really nicely aligned with the ailerons.

Most of the day was taken up with leaf raking, gutter cleaning, etc. The rains finally stopped so it was time to work outside and enjoy the relatively nice weather. I also managed to get down to Boeing Field for a couple of touch and gos. As expected for a VFR day, it was very busy in the pattern.

After posting on the VAF forum and reading the instructions, it was obvious I needed to trim away some of the wing tips. I trimmed away just enough so the wing skins would fit into the recess in the tips. I then needed Julie’s help to mark 1/4″ over from the ailerons.

I turned to the flap sensor while waiting for her to return. It took quite a bit of messing around. I had to remake both parts, but got it all figured out eventually. The angle needed to be primed, so I took care of that. Picture soon when I get it all assembled.

I epoxied an AD5-4 rivet in the end of this fitting for the manifold pressure. It’s difficult to see, but there’s a 1/16″ hole drilled through the middle of the rivet. Should make an effective restrictor.

The fuel hoses arrived back that Spencer Aircraft modified for me. The hose from the firewall to the mechanical pump looks OK, although now I’m reading reports that having a 90 degree fitting in the pump inlet is a bad idea.

The modifications for the fuel flow sensor did not work out as well. The sensor block with the fittings is a long stretch that wants to remain straight. Not good for bending around the engine mount. The fuel line gets way too close to the exhuast. Might install a 45 or 90 degree fitting in the outlet. Not ideal for the flow sensor, but I don’t see another solution.

Started messing around with the wing tip fitting, but couldn’t figure out why the ailerons seem to be in the way.

I got some further advice on the labels from Frank at Pulsar. He said another builder with a powder coated panel also had some trouble. He suggested putting a light dusting of the glue spray on the panel as well as spraying the label. And I talked to Bill Repucci on the phone who suggested using a blunt object like the end of a spoon to really rub the label onto the panel. Sounds like a good plan. I also gave the panel a good washing with Dawn in the bathtub, just to make sure there were no residual oils on it.

But as a wise builder once said, man cannot live on labels alone. My order from Spruce finally arrived (last time I use USPS), so I worked on aileron rigging instead. I installed the bellcrank in the left wing and hooked up the pushrod to the aileron. Radomir sent me some advice in email for aligning the aileron. I was trying to align all of the tooling holes, which isn’t correct. The idea is to align the tooling holes in the wing rib with the trailing edge of the aileron. That makes a lot more sense. I’ll still double check the aileron position once I can get at my plywood stash and make a template.

I tweaked the pushrod lengths with the special alignment tool in place on the bellcrank. Now I can easily set the ailerons back to neutral position for fitting the wing tips. It takes an amazingly long time to get all the bolts and washers in place and everything torqued down. The bolt for the pushrod attachment to the aileron is especially difficult to get at. Hopefully I won’t have to remove the ailerons for transporting the wings.

I had another half hour left before my appointed quitting time of 9pm, so I installed the lower spark plugs. I’ve been putting it off, because I was afraid preservative oil would pour out of the cylinders. There’s only a light spray of oil in there, so none poured out. I discovered I almost completely boofed up the EGT placement on the right side. The probes are really close to the spark plugs. I have to remove one probe to install/remove the spark plug, but that’s not a big deal.

Another round of label making. I contacted Frank at Pulsar for some advice on getting the white overlay to stick only to the toner. He said I still had moisture in the blue paper. I tried heating up the paper more with the heat gun before applying the overlay, and sure enough. Problem solved. Now I’m just having a problem getting the labels to stick completely to the panel. I tried cleaning the panel with rubbing alcohol and then lacquer thinner. No luck. I’ll call up Frank for some further advice after I review the instructions again.

Making the labels certainly has a lot of steps. I think I messed up a label at every step of the way, probably not helped by being tired and having a brew with dinner. I did get one word of one label to stick perfectly and it looks absolutely terrific. I just need to solve the problems with the last step and I’ll be on my way to label nirvana.

Here’s a JPEG of my labels so far. If you want the original Visio file, shoot me an email.

The panel is back from the powder coater. Looks great. It’s matte black with a slight rough texture. I tried making some labels for it using the Pulsar system. It’s a complicated process, but I think I have the steps down. If I were making black labels, it would be relatively easy. Adding the white foil is the main stumbling block at this point. I’m getting fuzziness around the letters and little white specks throughout the background. I’ll call Pulsar and see if they have some advice. I tried putting the label on a floppy disk as a test. The texture of the panel is very similar to this plastic. The missing parts of letters was just due to not using enough of the spray glue. That should be easy to fix.

After messing around with labels for an hour or so, I was ready for something else. I bought a mini-switch from Digikey a while back to replace the one I bought from Radio Shack for the baggage compartment light. The RS switch just didn’t look very solid. I installed the new switch and put the cabin frame support cover into place.

Installed the ailerons again in preparation for fitting the wing tips. The last time I installed them, I jammed in the washers exactly as specified in the plans. That didn’t really work very well. This time I installed washers to fit the space. Much better. The plans are way off on the washer call outs.

I set up the aileron neutral position by lining up the tooling holes, but I’m not very happy with that method. I can’t get all the wing and aileron holes to line up at the same time. I’m not sure which holes I’m supposed to use. Time for more research.

I hadn’t cut the bushings yet for the push rod attachment, so I did that on the band saw followed by drill press. It used to be fun making the bushings, but after a dozen or so bushings around the plane I’m tired of it. I picked up some plastic bushings at Lowes to go over the aluminum bushings. These serve as aileron stops. I measured the upward deflection with a digital level, and it’s almost exactly 32 degrees. Perfect. Thanks to the builder(s) that thought of that idea.

Installed the AOA ports on the left wing. The only tricky part was figuring out how to dimple for the #6 screws. I ended up using the 2X rivet gun turned down real low with the #30 dimples and the set holders from the long reach dimpler. Worked really well. Leo was supervising.

I also did the service bulletin for the left tank. Unfortunately, I had a brain fart and tried to turn one of the stainless socket head screws tighter rather than looser. I ended up stripping the socket. I made a quick run down to the hardware store for a #1 screw extractor and picked up two dozen new #8 socket-head stainless screws. Figured I’d better just replace them all and not press my luck. I also picked up a couple 1/16″ drill bits, as a broke my last one on the other tank. Once home, I drilled a 5/64″ hole into the stripped screw per instructions, and the screw extractor worked perfectly. Drilled the fuel pick-up nut, torqued, safety wired, and cleaned up the residual Proseal. Almost time to break out the Proseal cartridge. The “$20″ service bulletin so far is more like $50.

I had a little more time in the day, so I made a new top ignition wire to cylinder 2. Another fairly long day on the project, but productive.

Huge day. Julie agreed to some more riveting. I crawled inside the back of the plane and bucked the rivets for the middle top skin. Nothing tricky about it. It was actually much easier than the bottom wing skin riveting. As is the norm for tip-ups, I used MK-319-BS pop rivets on the forward-most 3 holes on each side. Looking more like a plane every day.

Here’s a shot of how comfortable it is in the back of plane. “Sure honey take your time. I’m comfy.” I could have reached some of the rivets from the outside, but it’s easier to just crawl in there and get it done right.

On top of that, I decided to make some more progress on getting the wings done and out of the garage. Luckily I just installed one Duckworks landing light, so this one was even easier. Cut, file, sand, drill, rivet, sha-zam.

Long day, but a lot accomplished.

I stopped by Schucks, my most convenient and least favorite auto parts store, to pick up some doo-hickeys for holding the ignition wires apart. $5 seems a bit steep for a couple pieces of plastic, but it’s chump change in the grand scope of this project. Along with strategic placed adle clamps, the plastic things held the wires it perfect position. With that sorted out, I could put the connectors on the spark plug end finally. I followed the Emagair instructions a little too literally and cut the first wire right at the tip of the spark plug, which ended up being too short. I’ll have to re-do that entire wire. On the others, I allowed an extra inch of length which worked out perfect.