Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

Passed the 900 hour mark!! I’m hoping that this is the halfway point on the project. We’ll see. Van’s estimates 1500 hours to complete the kit, but I think 1800 hours is probably more realistic.

I worked on squeezing the baggage ribs to the F-705 bulkhead. Only a few can be squeezed. I riveted a few more with the 3X gun. The rivets on the center ribs required the offset rivet set, and they ended up leaning over. I drilled them out and will wait for Julie’s help to finish the rest.

In the meantime, I pulled out the gussets that attach the F-705 bulkhead to the longerons. For the tip-up canopy, a square hole is needed for the latch to reach through, I think. I measured, drilled the corners, cut the sides with a coping saw, and filed and sanded them to perfection.

Julie was awesome today and helped a ton on the fuselage riveting. The fuselage has taken much longer than I thought it would. There are just so many different surfaces that need riveting and so many complicated areas like the corner ribs.

One area that was particular tricky is the curve in the bend at the corner rib. There are tabs from the aft fuselage that really need to be bent out a ways. I didn’t pre-bend them enough. I tried the trick of putting some rubber washers around the rivet so the bucking bar would hold down the tab, but that didn’t work too well. It turned out the tabs are large enough that I could use a screwdriver to hold down the tab and still get the bucking bar on the rivet. It also helped when Julie held the rivet gun perpendicular to the surface right around that particular rivet. It’s harder than it sounds since the skin curves right there.

We just about finished the whole thing except for just a few tricky rivets around the corner ribs. After shooting those and squeezing some rib to bulkhead rivets, this thing will be ready to flip!

Julie helped me with some fuselage riveting today. We riveted all of the bottom skin stiffeners and some of the lower longerons.

While checking out the fuselage, I realized there are a few thing I could do solo. I squeezed the rivets along the longeron from the F-902 to F-705 bulkhead. I examined the plans several times to confirm that this is the area that needs rivets now. The rest of the rivets are left for later when top skins are added.

There are some “keeper” rivets along the longeron that hold things together temporarily until the top skins are put on. I squeezed those as well.

Since I’m going to be priming some parts for the seat backs soon, I decided to get some other parts ready. I drilled and deburred the parts for the elevator bellcrank.

Julie helped me with some riveting today. We got about 1/3 of it done. We did the rivets along the F-704, the arm rests, the F-705, the baggage ribs, and the seam between the center and aft sections along the sides of the fuselage. Not too shabby. I’ll need to take a closer look at a couple of the shop heads as they might need to be re-done.

I placed a bunch more rivets in the bottom skin and the last few remaining areas. It’s ready for riveting. Not much more I can do on it solo. I could squeeze the longeron rivets, but I’d rather leave that for later.

I did manage to squeeze the rivets for the center rudder tube brace.

I spent most of the day helping my friend Steve install a new electrical panel in his boat. It was great prep for me. I got some experience crimping ring terminals and lugs.

I did manage to cleco in the bottom skin stiffeners and squeeze the rivets at both ends. This is much easier done with the bottom skin off, as mentioned on Matthew’s site.

I then decided it was time to put on the bottom skin. I had a little trouble with this, as I had riveted too far up the F-704 and aux longeron to allow the dimpled skin to slide in easily. I was able to get it on, but it was tight. I’d recommend not riveting the last one or two rivets at the top, if you follow what I did.

In order to make the best possible use of Julie’s time, I’m placing rivets in every other hole and taping them in. That way we can just cruise through them with the rivet gun. She can take a break while I put rivets in the remaining holes, and then we cruise through them. At least that’s the theory. I did a bunch of the rivet placement.

With the forward bottom skin off, I was also able to solo rivet the aux longerons, the side stiffeners, the F-902, and the forward half of the F-704. That worked out really well.

I installed the control column mounts, torqued the bolts, and marked them with inspection lacquer. I then scuffed and used MEK to clean the forward edge of the side skins where I will later put firewall sealant when I install the cowl hinges. After those final little details, I re-assembled the firewall onto the fuselage for the last time and added all of the miscellaneous stiffeners and longerons.