Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

Just squeezed a few more rivets tonight on the front HS spar, right up to the point where I need to have the skin ready. Don’t feel like deburring the skins and I don’t have the frame built for the C frame yet. Instead Adele and I re-labeled all of the drawers in the parts organizer. The blue pen I used was starting to wear off.

I figured out that there was a much easier way to get to the rivets I was trying to squeeze last night. I just needed to come at it from the other direction.

Also called Geoff Sharples, an EAA Technical Counselor. He said he’d stop by once I start attaching the skins to the spars. Since I took the SportAir class, I should know what a good rivet looks like (yikes!). I think a few of my rivets may be squeezed a bit to the side. I must not have had the squeezer on there quite square. I’ll get a second opinion on it and then maybe drill them out and try again.

I finished up the HS rear spar and started on the front spar. This time, the instructions didn’t give any warning about not riveting every hole in the front spar. It did have a nice warning about the flush rivets. I need to watch the plans much more carefully. I’ve learned my lesson. Drilled out 8 rivets. At least I’m getting very good at that. I had some trouble getting the pneumatic squeezer into the tight spots to attach HS-405 to the front spar. Juggling the dies around, I got one combination to work.

I squeezed some rivets on the HS rear spar. Adele helped me my putting the rivets in the holes. It was nice that the instructions suggesting putting tape over the holes that shouldn’t be riveted, but they didn’t mention the holes where the center bracket gets bolted on. Of course, I would have noticed the larger hole if I was putting the rivets in. It was no big deal to get the rivet back out of there.

After the long day yesterday and a flying lesson in the morning, I decided to spend more time with the family today.

I did put in a little time and finished deburring the left HS skin and dimpled all of the holes around the edges of both skins. I also clecoed together the rear spar in preparation for riveting.

This shot looks very similar to some pictures we have from the zoo. “Here’s Adele in front of the wild airplane builder pen. You can see him in his natural habitat.”

Big day. The weather was cooperating, so I decided to get all of the skeleton pieces of the HS ready for priming. I did the dimpling and then got the pieces all preped. The instructions from Aircraft Finishing Systems called for washing everything with Dawn, rinsing, spraying with the cleaner/etch, scrubing with a Scotch-brite pad, and then a final rinse. Time consuming for each piece, but they looked great. I wasn’t convinced that the marks with the etching pencil were going to show through the primer, so I punched everything too (good thing). I also had some help getting those pesky tags off of the parts.

The painting itself didn’t go well. The Harbor Freight touch-up sprayer refuses to draw up the paint. I can get it to spray water. After switching back to the paint, it finally sort of worked. The paint was still coming out in a fog more than a spray. I had to do multiple, multiple (like 10) coats. In the end, the pieces look good, but it took about 2 hours of spraying. Very tiring. I also discovered that dangling the items doesn’t work so well. They tend to blow around a lot as you’re trying to spray them.

I also had a little bit of time to debur most of the holes in the left skin. After smoothing the edges and dimpling, the parts will be ready to put together!!

Called Van’s this morning to see if it was ok to use a #10 drill bit instead of a #12. The instructions call for using a #12 drill bit to drill the main hinge bracket to the rear spar. However, the Cleaveland kit came with only a #10. The builders assistant said the #10 hole would be way to big. He suggested trying a 3/16″ drill bit. I did that and it worked great. It’s theoretically a few thousands too small, but the bolt fits fine.

Removed the blue plastic from the area around the holes on the outside of the HS skins. Removed the blue plastic completely from the inside of the skin. Deburred the holes on the right skin. Did some practice dimpling and dimpled a few parts of the skeleton. That’s the last step for the skeleton pieces before priming. Hopefully the weather cooperates this weekend so I can prime. I also read ahead in the instructions to see how the riveting works. It’s going to be tricky to rivet some parts of the skin.

Deburred the holes in the left HS skeleton and smoothed the edges on the right spars. Spent some time smoothing the finish of the HS-710 and 714. I think I’m about ready for a priming session. Now if only the weather would cooperate. I’m doing the priming outside, and the weather has been really rainy and windy lately.

Drilled the HS right skin to the skeleton and started deburring. I deburred all of the holes in the right skeleton and smoothed the edges on the right spars.

I got some help removing clecos.

Fluted HS-404 and 405. Lined up and drilled the skin to HS-405 and HS-702. And drilled the HS-405 rib to the front spar (at least I think that’s what this picture is–serves me right for waiting two weeks before writing this).

Spent most of the evening installing the new utility sink. I don’t like plumbing, but it’s nice to finally have a working sink out in the garage.

Did battle with the paint gun. I decided to prime a practice part, the screw gauge that Van’s supplied, and the rear spar bearing. I washed the parts with Dawn, sprayed them with the cleaner/etch, let them sit a few minutes, and then scrubbed them with Scotch-brite. It worked really well, and the etch didn’t smell bad at all. I was expecting it to really stink. I then mixed up the paint. I had to thin it down a little bit with distilled water in order to get it to 20-25 seconds on the drip test. For some reason, the spray gun didn’t want to work. I messed with it for a while, but it just wasn’t spraying. I gave up and cleaned out the gun. In that process, I found out that it sprays water just fine. So I tried the paint again. This time it worked fine. I still need to perfect my painting skills. I think I got it on a little too thick at the beginning, because it kind of beaded up. Overall, the parts turned out well.

I then riveted the rear spar bearing bracket together. The pictures show a rivet in the pneumatic squeezer before and after squeezing. And then the final assembly. My first riveted part. Woohoo!

I spent the rest of the evening drilling out the right HS skeleton and clecoing together the right HS.