The nut plates and new static line that I ordered from Van’s showed up today. I installed the static line.
Riveted the nut plates in place.
Riveted the aft stiffeners.
Countersunk the upper cover plate attach holes.
Installed the left cover plate. The other one is on it’s way from Van’s. I bought some stainless screws to install the cover plates.
I riveted the aft deck in place.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 3.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 180.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 180.0 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
I cut the horizontal stabilizer attach bar support angle from the provided aluminum angle. I measured it out with the calipers, marked it. Drilled stop holes in the inside corners and used the bandsaw to remove most of the material. I finished removing material with a vixen file and cleaned it up on the scotch brite wheel.
Made the rudder stops from the provided aluminum angle. I measured with calipers, marked up the angle and cut it on the band saw. I cleaned it up with a file and the scotch brite wheel.
I machine countersunk the top two holes in each rudder stop. I was totally stumped on how to countersink the other two holes on the inside of the angle. The countersink cage won’t fit. After some head-scratching I gave Jared a call to see what he did.
Apparently theres a thing called a “paint cutter arbor” that has the same threading as the countersink cage and one can mount the countersink cutter into it and mount it in the drill press. So I ordered one from Aircraft Spruce.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 2.5 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 131.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 131.0 |
I got home from a grocery run with the family and my replacement trailing edge was waiting in the driveway. Thank you, Van’s. Their shipping team is not taking any chances. The trailing edge was wrapped in paper, and sealed in a length of PVC pipe with PVC end caps. The end caps were sealed with that tape they use for packing everything. This is the stickiest tape ever. I’m thinking I might build a plane from it after the RV is done.
I was just going to bring it down to the shop. But once I saw the packing job, I just had to open it. …and since I was down there and the drill press was still set up for countersinking trailing edge, I clecoed it to the skin, marked it, trimmed it, and finished the outboard end correctly this time. And then I countersunk it.
…and while I’m down here, I might as well prep the skins for bonding, too. Same drill as the trim tab… Measure, tape, strip primer with isopropyl, sand, and wipe with acetone.
Ready to start assembling the elevators!
Happy New Year!
| Today’s Time (hours): | 2.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 103.5 |
| Total Time (hours): | 103.5 |
Busy day of building today! Started off with a Home Depot run to pick up some paint pots and gloves. Then I got set up and shot all of the elevator part and skins with primer.
That was a lot of stuff to prime. Didn’t mix enough and had to make a second batch to finish the skins.
Once the primer was dry, I brought everything in the house and dimpled the skins and all the ribs, spars, and other miscellaneous parts. Clecoed the forward half of the trim tab hinge to the aft spar and machine countersunk the portion of the aft spar that attaches to the hinge. Did a similar job on the trim tab spar later.
Modified my female #40 dimple die to enable dimpling of the nut plates needed for the trim tab servo doubler. I just ground off a bit of the edge on the bench grinder.
Here’s the modified die in action squeezing a dimple into a nut plate.
And here are the nut plates installed in the doubler.
I machine countersunk the parts of the trim tab pushrod and double flush riveted it together. The plans called out AN426-3-3.5 rivets but those were too short. I used -4.5’s and they came out perfect.
Clecoed together the trim tab with the spar and trailing rdge and final drilled the holes in the closeout tabs.
I machine countersunk the the trailing edges for the trim tab and left elevator using the tapered-pilot countersink cutter. I’m still waiting for the right trailing edge from Van’s to replace the one a screwed up.
I riveted the trim tab horns and spar to the bottom trim tab skin.
Taped off the places on the skins and spar where I’ll bond the ribs and trailing edge in order to prep for the ProSeal and trailing edge tape. I removed the primer with isopropyl. I scuffed with 150 grit sandpaper. Then cleaned the scuffed areas with acetone. Then I removed the tape.
Tomorrow will be my first experience with ProSeal. I’ll be using it to glue the trim tab ribs in place. Plans call for a “well and truly flat” work surface on which to weight down the trim tab while the ProSeal sets up. I don’t consider my workbenches to be “well and truly flat.” So I’ll be off to Home Depot again tomorrow to come up with something. Maybe a steel plate or a 3/4″ MDF panel?
| Today’s Time (hours): | 9.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 100.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 100.0 |
Machine countersunk the flanges of both spars.
Used the blunted soldering iron to remove the blue plastic from the rivet lines. Then used a file and sand paper to clean up the edges. They were pretty rough.
Used the trusty DRDT-2 to dimple the skins. Good upper body workout. Lots of holes!
Tada…
Ribs, stringers, and skins all ready for scuff and prime.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 3.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 64.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 64.0 |
Got the font spar to the point where it’s ready to be scuffed and primed. This was way more work than it looked like in the plans. It all started with the spar caps. They had to be trimmed and deburred. Then they’re match drilled to the spar web. Then disassembled, deburred, reassembled. Then they are match drilled to the spar flanges, disassembled and deburred. There were approximately a million and one holes drilled and deburred in these things.
Then on to the spar doubler. The usual drill (no pun intended)… Deburr edges, fit, cleco, final drill, disassemble, deburr holes.
Countersunk twelve of the holes on the doubler.
And here are all the front spar parts ready for scuff and prime.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 5.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 53.5 |
| Total Time (hours): | 53.5 |
Ron's RV-14A Build Log 