Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Found out today that the wings won’t be ready to ship until Feb 2. Bummer.