Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

The primer was a little light on a few of the parts, so I hit them with a little more primer after roughing them up a bit.

Long day. On top of flying, I also etched all of the rudder and VS parts, including washing the skins and spars that were too big for the sink. I also primed everything. All of the washing, etching, and set up takes longer than the actual painting.

The painting went really well this time. Cranking up the kerosene heater in the now insulated garage got it up to about 80 degrees. The paint was drying very nicely at that temp. It took about 3-4 coats to get everything coated nicely. Let it dry half an hour and flipped everything over to paint the other side.

The air inside the paint booth definitely got nasty after a while. It had a strong ammonia smell that the respirator wasn’t eliminating. During the halftime break, I pointed a fan into the booth opening and opened the garage door for a while. That helped. It still is definitely not as bad as spraying a solvent-based paint.

Total time today was 5.0 hours, which was split between the rudder and VS.

Ended up flying today, so I didn’t get the priming done. I did manage to wash all of the rudder parts and most of the VS parts.

Last few finishing items before priming tomorrow. I sanded out the milling marks on the rudder horn. The #10 dimple die and countersink arrived, so I dimpled the counterweight rib and countersunk the weight itself.

I noticed a little note on the drawings about locally tapering the counterweight skin in two spots on each side, so I took to the Scotch-brite wheel. That should reduce the bulge in the rudder skins in those spots. No mention of this step in the instructions. Once again, important to examine the drawings.

Did some other miscellaneous marking and sanding.

Finished countersinking the holes in the rudder AXE trailing edge wedge. It came out pretty nice. Following someone else’s suggestion, I used a hole in the wood block underneath to keep the countersink bit from wandering around. When you countersink from both sides, the hole gets enlarged to the point where the bit won’t stay centered. The hole in the wood eventually got too large as well, so I used a piece of scrap aluminum as a backer.

Started setting up the painting booth. Time for some major priming sessions this weekend.

The Avery Vise-grip dimpler arrived, so I tried it on the hard-to-reach holes in the rudder ribs. The dimples are not quite as good as the pneumatic squeezer or C-frame, but not bad. They’ll work. I had to unbend the ribs a tiny bit to get the Vise-grip in there, but bent it back afterward. Looks great.

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.

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.