Riveted right outboard leading edge skins to ribs with some help from Remy.
Placed the leading edge back into the cradle and clecoed the J channel stiffener and the landing light bracket in place. I’ll rivet those in place tomorrow. It was getting late.
Sophie deburred the edges of all the tank ribs for me while I was in Toronto this week.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 2.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 113.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 324.0 |
Finished riveting the skin to the ribs of the left outboard leading edge. Had to lie it flat and get Remy to buck the last three rows on the top side. Just couldn’t reach.
Riveted the landing light mounting bracket in place.
Riveted the J channel stiffener to the top of the skin.
Left outboard leading edge complete.
Clecoed the ribs into the right outboard leading edge skin and drilled the 3/8″ hole for the tie-down eye bolt.
Fabricated the spacers for the landing light brackets. Painted the spacers and mounting screws. Riveted the nut plates into the brackets and shot another coat of paint over the rivets. Assembled the landing lights into the brackets.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 4.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 111.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 322.0 |
Wiped everything down with acetone and shot everything with P60G2 Primer.
Painted the outboard bays flat black so it looks decent when seen through the landing light lenses. Kinda wish vans provided some sort of reflector or housing.
Dimpled a lot of nut plates. Riveted them to the splice strips, the inspection plate doubler. and the landing light backing plates, and the landing light brackets.
Clecoed the inspection port doubler to the skin and riveted in place.
Clecoed the ribs to the left skin and drilled the tie-down hole.
Made it about half way through riveting the left leading edge before calling it a night.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 6.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 107.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 318.0 |
Clecoed the left leading skin to the ribs.
Slid the j channel into place and clecoed the starter hole. Then match drilled all the holes from the skin into the stiffener.
Match drilled the aft-most top and bottom holes in each of the ribs.
Disassembled everything and repeated the whole process for the right wing. Deburred and dimpled all the holes.
Dressed the edges of the skin with a file and sand paper. The cut-outs for the landing lights were pretty jagged. I cleaned them up with an abrasive drum on the Dremel and some sandpaper.
Dimpled the skins with the DRDT2 and scuffed the insides with a scotch brite pad.
Dimpled the rest of the parts.
Everything is ready for priming and assembly.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 7.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 101.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 312.0 |
Deburred all the edges of all the things. The doublers for the landing light lenses looked like they were crafted by Van’s with a chainsaw. You can see the before and after shot below. I used sandpaper to work the flanges around the nose of the ribs so that the skins don’t telegraph any faceting.
Trimmed the four ribs called out in the plans so that they will fit around the spar braces. Finished with files and sandpaper.
Flattened, straightened and fluted all the ribs. Then final drilled and deburred all the holes.
Dimpled all the holes with the squeezer.
Cut the J-channel stiffeners to length and drilled the first inboard hole in each.
Final drilled #19 the screw holes in the splice strips. Carefully deburred the holes and dimpled for #8 screws. Dimpled all the #40 holes as well.
In other news, I received the order confirmation for the engine I ordered at Sun ‘n Fun. The ship date from Lycoming is October 11.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 5.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 94.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 305.0 |
Picked all the parts for the leading edges. I cut the splice strips from the tank skins and trimmed the tabs from the cover plate doubler using snips.
Cut out the leading edge cradles from the shipping crate top. Forgive the blur in the image… I photoshopped out my address from the top of the create.
Cut the 2 x 4, glued it, and screwed it to the cradles. Clamped them to the workbench
Off to Nashville for a conference tomorrow… Sophie said she’d prep (peel, edge deburr, and scuff) all the parts while I’m gone. So should be able to begin fabrication and fitting when I get back later in the week.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 2.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 89.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 300.0 |
Riveted the nut plates to the inboard rib and skin. Machine countersunk the screw holes.
Match drilled the aileron bracket to the outboard rib and rear spar, deburred, and riveted in place.
Top wing skins completed!
| Today’s Time (hours): | 1.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 87.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 298.0 |
Awesome helper! Remy bucked and I shot.
We got the both skins the wing walk doublers riveted to the spars and ribs.
Clecoed the J-channel stiffeners to the skins.
Riveted the stiffeners to the skins.
Tomorrow I’ll rivet the nut plates to the inboard rib and attach the outboard aileron bracket. That will complete the top skins section.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 3.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 86.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 297.0 |
Remy and I riveted the J channels to the top skin.
Riveted the outboard aileron bracket to the outboard rib and rear spar. My new 7″ long rivet set came in handy here.
Left wing top skins done!
Clamped the right wing sub-structure to the benches. Clecoed the skins and wing walk doublers in place.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 1.5 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 83.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 294.0 |
Riveted the nut plates that will be used to attach the wing attach point fairings. I was able to squeeze all the rivets.
Machine countersunk the corresponding #8 screw holes to fit a dimpled skin.
Clecoed and match drilled the outboard aileron bracket. Then deburred everything and clecoed back in place.
It was a bit too ate in the evening for riveting so that will have to wait until tomorrow. If Remy can buck a few more rivets with me, I should be able to get the stiffeners riveted in and the left wing top skins will be complete!
| Today’s Time (hours): | 1.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 81.5 |
| Total Time (hours): | 292.5 |
Ron's RV-14A Build Log 