Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

The tool kit arrived. At the wrong house. I got home and nearly panicked when the boxes weren’t there. I was worried somebody stole the boxes from my front porch. Luckily a neighbor from a few blocks away called and said they had the boxes. That’s not the first time I’ve had problems with UPS, but it is the last time I use them.

I spent the entire evening unpacking, setting up, and playing with the tools. The Sioux air drill is by far my favorite tool. I used an air drill at the SportAir workshop, but it was nothing like the Sioux. This thing just purrs in your palm. You can make it go 10 rpm or 3600 rpm. It’s incredibly responsive. My daughter had fun with it too. It’s hard to say “it’s not a toy” with a straight face.

Unfortunately the 6″ Scotchbrite wheel, the one thing I was waiting for, is back ordered. Cleaveland is sending it out today. I guess I’ll just have to start shaping and deburring the old fashioned way, with the Vixen file, the debur tool, and the Scotchbrite pads.

All of the tools are now stored neatly in the new tool chest. I just have a little more clean up and set up left before I can start in on it. I spent probably 3 hours last night playing with the tools, but I’m not going to count that toward the construction time. I consider that my learning curve and shop set-up time. The construction time total will be just the time I spend on the kit.

This whole time, I’ve still been working on my private pilot license. I’m flying now 3 days a week, trying to take advantage of the weather before it turns rainy and windy. I’m also about halfway through the ground school. Plane construction is going to be a bit slow for a month or so while I finish up the ground school. Once I’m done with that, I’ll have more time for building.

I feel like I’ve been buying tools like crazy lately. Sears currently has a sale on their big rolling tool chests. After living without one of these for many years (well, I borrowed one from my mother-in-law for a short while), I finally broke down and bought one. It’s still expensive on sale, but I have too many tools in boxes and on the workbench. It’s time to get organized.

I also picked up a bench grinder with stand at Sears. I comparison shopped a bit, but these things all look about the same and are around $40-60.

I like the Viewtainers that Walter Tondu has on his site, but I couldn’t find them at Home Depot. Instead I got a cheap multi-drawer plastic organizer. The major drawback with it is that the drawers slide very easily. Tip it just a little the wrong way and all of your carefully sorted parts are on the floor. Put the ear muffs on the kid if that ever happens. I think I’ll attach it to the wall.

Woohoo! Box 1 of the empennage arrived. That was fast. Helps to live only 200 miles from the factory. My first words were, “Is that it?” It’s a very small and unimpressive box. However, inside they’ve really packed a lot in there. (Everything was wrapped in paper. I removed it for the picture.) Lots of little bags of tiny parts. And lots of little aluminum pieces stacked inside each other. Somebody has definitely thought about the best way to package this stuff so it doesn’t get damaged along the way. The box was smashed a bit on one side, but I couldn’t see any damage to the contents. Hopefully box 2 arrives tomorrow. The Cleaveland tools are set to arrive on Monday according to UPS.

I still need to get a bench grinder, tool chest, air lines, particle board, and some parts organizers. I also need to organize the last of the junk on the bench and get the rest of the other junk out of the garage. And I need to buy and install a new utility sink (the old one was incredibly small). And finish up a couple of non-RV projects (mainly installing a bathroom fan). I am totally excited about diving into this project.

I pulled the trigger. I was waiting until after our vacation last week to officially get going on this project. I faxed the order form for the empennage to Van’s yesterday. It should be shipped out today. I also bought Cleaveland’s aircraft tool kit plus a few other odds and ends (pneumatic squeezer with adjustable set and pins, rivet fan, Scotch-brite pads, and Boelube). I also stopped by Home Depot on the way home last night and picked up a “Husky Pro” (actually a Campbell-Hausfeld) air compressor. Since all I have right now is a small pancake compressor, I decided to buy the best compressor for the project. It’s a vertical, portable, 120v/240v, 5hp, 26 gallon, cast iron, oiled compressor. That should provide enough air without being obnoxiously loud, and I can haul it to the hangar when I get that far. I’m also planning on building a box for it eventually. I live in a fairly dense neighborhood. I want to keep the neighbors (relatively) happy. I’m going to do some experiments with running it at 240v vs. 120v and see what the difference is. If it charges up quicker, I’ll add a 240v circuit in the garage.

[Dec 23, 2003: I haven’t built a box for the compressor, and I doubt I will. The noise is not bad. If I’m working right next to the compressor, I’ll put on ear protection while it cycles. You can’t hear the compressor outside the garage at all now that the entire garage is insulated. Also, I never did experiment with switching the compressor to 240v. 120v works fine. It has an almost dedicated 20 amp circuit. I just don’t run the Shop-Vac and the compressor at the same time.]

The preview plans arrived on Friday. I glanced through them, but have been too busy to really study them. I’ve been working on the garage and reading the private pilot training materials. After I get some 3/4″ plywood, the workbench will be complete. It’s 16′ x 32″. That should be big enough for the project with the addition of some moveable work tables. I also now have a few new plug circuits in the garage for power tools. I won’t have to run exension cords all over the place anymore. The next step is to get the rest of the stuff put away and the garage floor painted maybe this weekend.

The pilot training has been going great. Saturday’s flight was the first time I felt like I’m getting the hang of it. I had a few radio exchanges with the tower, executed a turn around a point well (albiet with no side wind), and did some of the piloting for a few touch-and-gos at Renton. Every time I go up, I get more and more hooked on flying.

I’m still in the prep phase of building. In the last few weeks, I’ve insulated and drywalled the garage. I also installed 4 flourescent shop lights. That was a huge improvement.

I’m currently building a work bench and shelves. The goal is to get everything up off of the floor and make as much useful work space as possible. I’m also planning on cleaning and painting the floor. That will make it much more pleasant in the garage. I can’t believe how much the drywall has improved the space–much lighter and clean-looking.

A few weeks ago I ordered the intro packet from Van’s. The video is a bit unpolished, but it’s great to see the RVs flying. I also attended the EAA SportAir workshop on basic sheet metal working last weekend (Aug 23-24). Our instructor, Jack, was great. I now have a huge amount of confidence that I can do this. Not because I think it’s easy. Quite the opposite. We made a few mistakes on our relatively simple project, and we learned how to correct them. Screw up a rivet? Carefully drill it out and do it again. I doubt anybody could find the fixed rivet. It looked perfect the second time. I’ve never done much metal working, but the workshop was great fun. I’m looking forward to starting this project more than ever now.

The other thing I’ve been doing is reading all of the information available on the internet. The project web sites that people have set up are terrific resources, especially Dan Checkoway’s. I also signed up for the Yahoo and Matronics email lists.

This week I ordered the preview plans for the RV-7. They should arrive today. I can’t wait to pour through them.

As a side note, I’m currently learning how to fly through Galvin Flying. It’s not the cheapest school in the area, but they have a great reputation. I know when I get through there, that I’ll have the experience and knowledge to stay out of danger in the sky.