Ellen likes to leave little notations on the airplane, like here where we drilled out a rivet. If you’re old enough to know the “Oh Nooo, Mr Bill!” reference, you’re just old!
Oh noooooo!
Perseverance pays off, especially for us really slow builders…the left wing’s inboard lower skin is riveted on!
Left inboard wing skin riveted
Finished up the inboard skin on the left wing today. We’ve been slowly working through this process one bay at a time (see the 2 Aug entry).
Riveting skins on left wing
Halfway there on the wing skins…woohoo!
So why has it taken so long to get those damn wing skins riveted on? Some folks do solo bucking and shooting on the lower skins, but I’ve chosen to do this as a team. So Ellen and I do this work when we both have time, and when we don’t, I work on the fuse. But today we managed to complete the lower skins on the right wing.
We used a hybrid approach when riveting the skins. On the inboard skins we followed Vans’ instructions to the letter, riveting in a “chevron” pattern that leaves enough room at the front of the skin to reach up and buck the rear rib-to-skin and spar-to-skin rivets. But on the outboard skins we started out using the book approach, then switched to a bay-by-bay method for the outer part of the skin. Once we could gently peel back the skin, we reached in from the outboard end and did a rib, then the forward and rear spar-to-skin rivets that were outboard of the rib we just riveted. It’s really easier to do than to explain.
Skins riveted on right wing!
I had a great time at Oshkosh, camped with Captain John, Rich Mileka, Dave Rogers and other EAA folks from Boston. Also got to hang out with my friend Jim Piavis who brought his new RV-7 to Oshkosh for the first time.
JP’s RV at Oshkosh
The RV formation flights were amazing! They surely put the warbird folks to shame…
RV formation flight
RV formation flight
I spent most of my shop time during the last week installing the left aileron’s brackets , and getting both ailerons correctly fitted on the wing hinge brackets. As other builders have also experienced, the aileron hinge brackets on my wings had a slight list and I was concerned that this might interfere with aileron movement. But I was able to adjust the inboard/outboard position of the ailerons by adjusting spacers and washers on the aileron hinges – so there was no problem. Very cool!
With that, I’m declaring the ailerons complete – for now.
The last major hurdle in the never-ending aileron saga was to put the left aileron on a flat surface, pull the blind rivets that secure the spar bottom and skins, and squeeze the end rib rivets. When I did this before I used an old hollow-core door, tweaked it with shims until it was flat, then laid the aileron on it and weighted it down with two heavy pieces of MDF. Worked ok, but it was a little too wiggly for my taste. But where else would I find a flat surface?
Well, it turns out that we just finished having our kitchen remodeled, and those new granite countertops looked like they would fill the bill. So I pulled out the trusty SmartLevel, checked ’em, and sure enough they were flat to within 0.1 degrees in all directions. For $8,000, they damn well ought to be.
So after breakfast today I cleaned all the kitchen crap off of those countertops and turned ’em into my temporary workbench. I plopped that aileron on the bar countertop, weighted it down, ran an air hose up the stairs from the garage through the den to the kitchen, grabbed my pop-riveting tool and pneumatic squeezer, and went to work.
Man, those countertops worked like a champ – that aileron came out with no more than 0.1 degree of twist. I did as many rivets as I could up there – enough to lock the structure in place – then finished everything else up downstairs in the shop.
Just got back from another trip yesterday. Got to work this morning riveting the upper spar to the nose and main aileron skins. Managed to do it myself this time, after good practice on the flaps. Came out well, I’m pretty psyched. Once that was done, I squeezed all the nose rib rivets I could reach.
Got the aileron nose ribs, spars, reinforcement plates, platenuts and counterweight all riveted together today. Also clecoed the entire aileron assembly together in preparation for riveting, and mounted it in the 2″x4″ uprights I used previously to hold the aileron.
The only remaining tasks before final assembly were to match-drill, countersink and prime the counterweight pipe, and assemble the spar/counterweight structure. You’ll find the details on this process in the previous entries on this page, so I’m not gonna repeat them here.
I was a little surprised to see the following text on the replacement counterweight pipe that Van’s delivered…click here for the full-size picture. Be patient, the original pic is 1+ megaabytes.
With the with flaps done, I dusted off all those left aileron parts and jumped back into finishing it up. First order of business was to do the final bend on the trailing edge. I used the bending brake I had made previously, but wasn’t getting that nice 3/16″ radius called for in the plans.
So I started experimenting with my hand seamer (no jokes, please). Some other builders have used them to do the final trailing edge bend, but I was wary about the seamer edges putting crimps in the aileron skin. So I hit on the idea of taping strips of 0.025″ alclad to the seamer’s jaws to distributed the seamer’s clamping force a little more evenly.
That worked like a champ, and with the dowels still taped in place, I was able to get the bend radius right where I wanted it.
