Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

Adele tagged along for my lesson today. I wasn’t sure if she was going to like flying in a small plane. She loved it, even though it was a spam can. It’s cloudy here often, but when it’s clear it is amazing. All of these pictures were taken by Adele from the back seat. She was snapping pictures like crazy–40 in all. The pictures are:
Elliot Bay with downtown Seattle on the far right
Blake Island–the entire island is a state park
Olympic Mountains
Self portrait
Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier again framed by the window and wing

Went down to the Mount Rainier EAA 326 chapter meeting in Puyallup. Great group, and lots of RV builders. After the meeting, a few of us mosied over to a nearby hangar to check out Gordy’s RV-7. It was great to check out another project, especially one that is so far along.

Worked on a few things around the shop to help organize things before the wing kit gets here. I’m in the process of plumbing some copper for the air, and made a cool frame to hold the empennage parts.

My daughter said the garage looks like I’m making another home out there.

Also, totally unrelated to the plane, I put a receiver and speakers out in the garage. I couldn’t stand the ads on the radio anymore. (How many diamond rings do I need to buy????) I hooked the receiver up to the computer and can now play approx 2000 hours of mp3s. That should be enough to last for the whole project (I hope).

With tunes and heat and snacks, the shop is darn nice now. I might never leave.

Geoff Sharples, an EAA Technical Counselor that lives nearby, stopped by this evening and gave my project the unofficial seal of approval. It’s unofficial because EAA doesn’t really sign off on projects. Geoff checked over every component, examining rivets, and generally making sure everything looked good. Thanks Geoff!

We got a few inches of snow to close out 2003, so we built a snow person.

On a non-building note, I soloed for the first time today!! It seems like it took a long time to get to this point, but it was worth it.

Set up the painting booth. It only took about 15 minutes to set up. It should be easy enough to assemble and disassemble when I need to prime. It’s 6′ by 7′ by 6′6″ tall. Small enough to fit in the garage while still allowing the door to open. And should be large enough to hold lots of stuff. We’ll see tomorrow.

Spent the rest of the evening working on the garage insulation. It is finally finished.

I’ve been buying a few tools lately, too. Every time I need to buy something, I seem to order 2-3 additional tools. This is the list of recent acquisitions:

Vise-grip dimpler from Avery. This is handy for getting at the holes in the trailing end of the rudder ribs (and probably the elevator, too). Not sure how you dimple these otherwise.

Caliper and edge marking tool from Avery. No immediate need, but decided to get them.

Inline air regulator from Avery. The Cleavelend version of this is hard to do fine adjustments. Turning the knob 90 degrees goes from full on to full off. The Avery regulator has numbered notches and it takes several turns from on to off. That should make it easier to fine tune the air flow for riveting, and make it easier to change the setup for different rivet sizes.

Lightweight air hose kit from Cleaveland. This thing is so cool that I bought another one. The smaller hose is much lighter and more flexible than standard air hose. And the couplers are smaller and easier to get on and off. Well worth it.

Swivel mushroom set with rubber guard from Cleaveland. For some reason, Cleaveland includes in their airframe kit a non-swivel mushroom set w/o the guard. We were able to make that work, but the swivel set is 100% easier to use.

#12 drill bit from Cleaveland. This size is used at least once in the empennage (for the HS bearing). A 3/16″ drill bit is close to the same size, but not exactly right. Better to just get the right drill bit.

2.5″ longeron (a.k.a. flange-nose) yoke and 4″ thin nose yoke from Cleaveland. From what I’ve read, these two yokes make it possible to avoid several blind rivets in the tail, and will eventually be required on the wings.

Fly-cutter from Cleaveland. This is needed for making lightening holes in the rudder spar stiffener, and will be needed for other lightening holes in the wings. Only drawback with this thing is that it only goes down to 1.75″. Not small enough to do the 1.5″ holes. I would suggest getting the cutter from Avery instead.

#10 dimple die and #10 countersink cutter from Cleaveland. These are needed to countersink the rudder counterweight and dimple the skin that holds it. I guess some people use their deburring tool to make the countersink, but I’d rather use the right tool. These should have been in the original kit.

2″ precision square and needle file set from Cleaveland. I’ve been using a 12″ adjustable square, but it’s just too big for measuring things like the flange angle on ribs. I’ve also needed smaller files several times–time to get them.

Whew! I think that’s the complete list since I bought the original tool kit. You might have noticed that I buy most of my tools from Cleaveland. Their web site is easy to use when I’m trying to find a particular tool. I like that they send me the UPS tracking number via email, so I know when the package will arrive. And they usually ship the tools out the same day I order them.

Not much progress lately. Unless I want to start in on the elevators, the next step is really to prime some parts on the VS and rudder. It’s too cold and wet outside to prime. That means I need to build a paint booth in the garage in order to avoid painting everything in the garage. Right now, there isn’t room in the garage, because I’ve torn everything apart to insulate the ceiling.

Over the next few days, I’ll get the insulation work finished, clear out some space, build the paint booth, and hopefully shoot a bunch of primer this weekend.