Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

A potential RV builder, John Lewis, emailed me a few days ago about checking out my project and maybe trying out some metal working. The top skins needed drilling, so I set him up doing that. He did almost all of it, including the J stringers, and did a nice job of it. I had to crawl inside the canoe at one point to hold a stiffener in place. My first time climbing into the beast!

To give John a feel for the other tasks involved, I cut off a few pieces of scrap aluminum sheet and stepped him through the process of layout, drilling, deburring, dimpling, and riveting. He enjoyed it thoroughly, and did a great job. Thanks for the help John, and order that empennage!

I decided to start working on the steps. These things are not pretty and not fun, but are a necessary evil of a tri-gear model. I previously cut the holes in the side skins and baggage ribs. I worked on figuring out where to drill the holes on the step flange.

I cleaned all of the gussets and other parts in hopes of priming them this weekend.

I also received an order from Van’s. The first thing I ordered was the free fix for service bulletin 05-1-1. Since I haven’t built that part yet, I ordered new parts for the tip-up canopy connection to the F-706 bulkhead. The new parts look even easier to install than the old stuff. They sent a whole new fuselage instruction chapter–not helpful. I can’t switch over at this point. I just need to know what changed.

The other thing I ordered was the 5th point seat belt attach kit. It would have been better to install these when I was messing with the center section, but better late than never.

I’m getting close to having enough parts for a priming session. Unfortunately, the weather this weekend doesn’t look good. We’re finally getting the rain we need.

I removed the canopy decks, side rails, and gussets for deburring and priming/painting. Riveting on the side rails is going to be tricky.

I also clecoed on the middle (the one between the F-705 and F-707 bulkheads) top skin, along with the gusset and stiffener. The top skins are ready for drilling.

The replacement left firewall gusset arrived from Van’s. It was a perfect fit. I drilled it to the longeron and top firewall angle. I then deburred both gussets along with the longerons and firewall angle.

I thought it was cool that they sent a replacement part without any hassle, but it was only a $1.60 part.

I drilled and deburred the gussets that attach the F-706 and F-707 bulkheads to the longerons. The bulkhead holes are pre-punched, but the longeron holes aren’t. There’s nothing in the drawings about how to place the gussets on the longerons, so I just adjusted the angle until the face of the bulkhead lined up side to side.

I also drilled and partially riveted the arm rests to the F-705 bulkhead. I couldn’t reach the outside-most rivet with the squeezer, so that will have to be bucked. I started to drill the arm rest to the F-704 bulkhead, but the cover needs to go on first. I’m not sure when that happens.

The final thing I did for the night was work on the top aft area. I adjusted the flanges on the bulkheads to match the angle of the skins. I pulled out the J stiffeners for the top skins. I don’t remember doing it, but I already cut and shaped the ends when I was working on the tail cone. I put the stiffeners in place and clecoed on the aft top skin. It’s not exactly easy to do. It reminded me of wrestling with the tank skins. It might help to pre-bend the skin a bit.

I located and drilled the shoulder harness anchors to the longerons. They get set aside for now until after the top skins are riveted on.

I next messed with the bellcrank support. I removed the angle from the rib and drilled the top 4 holes to the F-706 bulkhead. These holes also get dimpled. After that I riveted the angle to the support.

The final thing I did was to rivet the angle at the top of the F-711 bulkhead. The plans to say to leave that until after the side skins are riveted, which they are.

Since the weather was so nice, I took a short flight today in a C172. Well, it started out nice. When I was pre-flighting the plane, the wind was variable but only 6 knots. By the end of my flight, the wind was gusting to 20 knots. It was mostly down the runway, but that much wind causes a lot of mechanical turbulence around the buildings and hills around Boeing Field. It was a tricky landing, that I pulled off nicely. It’s good to get practice on the tricky ones.

I did a bunch of work on the fuselage. I deburred the aft deck parts that I drilled yesterday. I fitted and drilled the canopy rails, canopy decks, and the gussets at F-705. I spent a lot of time double and triple measuring. I don’t want to screw up drilling through the longerons at this point, if I can help it. (7/7/2005 note: You’ll notice that I fit the forward canopy decks at this stage, eventhough the plans don’t call for it. It turns out that it’s a little better to wait and install these later.)

I also drilled one firewall gusset. The angle that the gusset made with the firewall angle wasn’t quite right, so I added a little bend in the vise. It was a perfect fit after that. The left gusset was not cut right at the factory. I called up Van’s and they are sending a free replacement.

It’s cool seeing this stuff go together. The number of parts left on the shelves is diminishing rapidly.

I spent most of the day sailing with Steve. The weather was just too nice not to get outside. The sun was shining, the temp was over 60 degrees, and the wind was blowing 10-15 knots. Perfect sailing weather.

I did manage to get a few things done on the plane. I finished up the remaining riveting on the aft fuselage. I also noticed a few spots around the F-704/longeron area that needed riveting where the sawhorse was in the way previously.

After that I tweaked the level of the fuselage some more so that it was exactly 0.0 degrees side to side and fore/aft.

I then drilled the aft deck to the longerons. The instructions say to look at drawing 26 for the aft deck. That drawing is almost useless. Look at drawing 27A. There you’ll notice two spacers that Dan mentions on his site. I fabricated those spacers and back-drilled them from the aft deck.

There’s still a couple of rivets left on the bottom. However, Julie is leaving for the weekend and I want to proceed on the fuselage. I decided it was time to flip it. Adele moved sawhorses around for me, but I basically flipped it by myself. Very carefully!! I just grabbed the fuselage around the firewall and carefully rotated it. The tail just rolled on its saw horse with one lift and move over by Adele.

Passenger #1!!!!

More pics of the canoe. (Edit: I discovered a few months later that I riveted the two outer floor stiffeners in the wrong orientation. This caused a minor problem with two of the covers for the F-704 bulkhead.)

I’ve got a ton of little things to work on at this point. I finished riveting the rear bulkheads up to the longerons. I also noticed there’s an area at the back without top skins. The longerons can be riveted from there all the way back.

I also worked on getting the fuselage absolutely level in order to fit the back deck. I used the firewall angle and the center section to determine if the fuselage was level.

Messed around deburring and drilling the various gussets that attach to the longerons.

The firewall gussets F-695-L and -R do not look the same. I discovered this a while ago, but figured it was no big deal. Two sides are about 1/4″ different. I drilled the gussets following the plans and then held them to the firewall/longeron intersection. The right one looks good, but the left one will not fit. The angle on the gusset isn’t right and the holes don’t line up. I called Van’s and they are sending a replacement. This is one of the very few parts that I’ve found a problem with.