Got all the ones on the left side that I could reach solo.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 2.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 162.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 162.0 |
Category: Empennage
Started riveting the side skins
Finished peeling the vinyl from the right side.
Remy helped my shoot some rivets so we got the aft bottom skin riveted to the bulkheads.
Then since I had his help we riveted the side skin to the bottom skin. I figured we’d start here while I had his help as I cannot reach those by myself. Unfortunately I read the note in the plans that said to start on the flats and work around the curve after we riveted this. I think If i just work around the curve and work my way up the side it will be fine. I’ll do the other side in the correct order.
All in all good progress today.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 2.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 160.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 160.0 |
Slow night in the shop tonight
I used the soldering iron to peel the vinyl from the rivet lines of the skins that I should have done before I clecoed the skin to the substructure. I removed a section of clecos and stripped the vinyl, replaced the clecos, and moved to the next section. Got through one side. I’ll get the other side tomorrow.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 0.5 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 158.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 158.0 |
Hey–this thing’s starting to look like an airplane.
Scuffed and primed the side skins.
Machine countersunk all the holes in the longerons.
Dimpled the remaining stiffeners.
Dimpled the skins.
Clecoed everything together.
In my excitement over putting all this together I neglected to peel the the blur vinyl from the rivet lines. I’ll have to remove some clecos and do that before I rivet.
I also riveted the aft bulkhead to the aft bottom skin.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 4.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 157.5 |
| Total Time (hours): | 157.5 |
Riveted the Bottom Skin
Almost riveted all the holes that I was supposed to on the bottom skin. I even managed to not rivet all the holes I wasn’t supposed to.
These two holes were blocked by stiffeners.
I can’t fit my bucking bar in there. Maybe time to invest in some more bucking bars.
Update: I just ordered this from spruce… Hopefully it will get in there. If not, I’ll stick a couple of pop rivets in there and call it a day.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 1.5 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 153.5 |
| Total Time (hours): | 153.5 |
Bulkheads Riveted
Clecoed and riveted the F-01412 aft bulkhead and tie down bracket.
Clecoed and riveted the F-01411 bulkhead and aft horizontal stabilizer attach bars.
Clecoed and riveted the F-01410 bulkhead and forward horizontal stabilizer attach bars.
Clecoed and riveted the F-01407 bulkhead.
Clecoed and riveted the F-01408 bulkhead and rudder cable bracket. Also added the stiffener clips to the bottom of the bulkhead. I believe that these were added to revs of the kit that came out after service bulletin 18-09-17 was issued to address cracking in the forward bottom skin.
Riveted nut plates to the battery angles. So why are these called battery angles when they have absolutely nothing to do with the battery? In fact the battery isn’t even located in the tail. My guess is that these parts were originally part of the RV-10 kit. The RV-14 borrows parts from other RV’s. So while in the RV-14 they are part of the aft bell crank assembly, in the RV-10 I’ll bet they formed part of the battery box and simply retained their part number and name when they were introduced to the RV-14. If anyone knows for sure, please comment.
The forward nut plate holes do not get nut plates as they are not applicable to the RV-14.
Riveted the battery angles to the bell crack ribs.
Riveted nut plates to the F-01406B bulkhead. Note the discolorations at the bottom of the bulkhead. I managed to scratch the primer moving the part before it was fully cured. So I touched it up. Apparently re-shooting P60G2 creates this discoloration. It seems to have dried properly and doesn’t seem to be problematic; just unsightly.
Riveted bell crank ribs to the F-01406B bulkhead.
Clecoed and riveted the F-01407 bulkhead to the bell crank ribs.
Dimpled the forward bottom skin with the DRDT-2
Lots of dimples!
Dimpled the stiffeners.
Clecoed the bell crank ribs, bulkheads, and stiffeners to the bottom skin.
Ready to Rivet!
| Today’s Time (hours): | 5.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 152.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 152.0 |
Primed Tail Cone Parts
I peeled the blue vinyl from the j channel that’s formed into the edges of the bottom skin so that I could scuff and prime those along with the inside of the skin.
First batch of four ready to shoot.
Second batch was the rest of the bulkheads and bell crank ribs (not pictured) and the third batch included the longerons and stiffeners. The last batch was the bottom skin.
Et viola!
Tomorrow I’ll begin assembling the tail cone. Once I get the substructure assembled and riveted to the bottom skin, I’ll have one more big scuff and prime session for the skins and the few remaining substructure components.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 3.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 147.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 147.0 |
Whole lotta scuffin’
I cut the aft tail skin with the snips. Cutting .040 aluminum with snips is a workout. I thought of using the band saw but it’s an awkward part to cut straight with the saw. I trusted my skills with the snips more than steadiness of my hand at the band saw. Good result but my forearm was pretty sore afterward.
Cleaned it up with file and sand paper.
My paint cutter arbor arrived from Aircraft Spruce. So I was able to cut the remaining countersinks in the rudder stops without the cage.
I was skeptical that I’d be able to hit the right depth free hand but it worked out fine.
I also heard back from Van’s support on the holes that I thought shouldn’t be dimpled and in fact they shouldn’t have. So I hammered them flat. This was definitely an error in the plans. Now my tie down bracket sits flush.
And finished up with a marathon scuffing session.
I’ve got to be honest. Scuffing parts is my least favorite part of the process. It’s dusty messy work.
That was a lot of parts to scuff but I’m glad I fought through and got them done. This is most of the parts for the tail cone. Once these are primed, I’ll only have the skins and a few small parts left to scuff and prime in order to complete the empennage. Big priming session tomorrow. Then I can start assembling. 🙂
| Today’s Time (hours): | 3.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 144.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 144.0 |
More work on bulkheads
Modified the bottom of the 1408 bulkhead.
Deburred and dimpled all the 1407 and 1408 bulkhead parts.
Separated, deburred, and dimpled the bell crank ribs.
I realized when I went to drill the battery angles that I somehow modified the wrong one. I could swear that I marked these parts carefully before I separated them but it appears I switched the A and B markings. I don’t think this will be a problem though. I just needed to modify the correct one. The modification to the wrong one is not consequential.
Once I fixed that, I drilled and countersunk all the nut plate holes and match drilled the angles to the bell crank ribs. I deburred and dimpled the 1406 bulkhead as well.
I think next weekend I’m going to have two solid days of scuffing and priming all these parts.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 4.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 141.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 141.0 |
Finished Elevators and Worked on Aft Three Bulkhead Assemblies
Yay! Rivets came in the mail and I was able to finally complete the elevators.
Cleaned up the edges and deburred the longerons and J stiffeners.
Matched drilled the aft bulkheads to the VS aft spar.
Countersunk the tie down support.
Dimpled the bulkheads. I think I found a problem with the plans. They called for dimpling the #30 holes in the web of the bulkhead. Note the two dimples along the edge of the tiedown bracket. they are keeping it from sitting flush against the bulkhead. I’ll likely need to undimple these holes somehow.
Match drilled the next bulkhead to the HS attach bars and dimpled the flanges.
Likewise with the next bulkhead…
Ready for deburring, scuffing, and priming.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 6.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 137.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 137.0 |
Ron's RV-14A Build Log 