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

New Trailing Edge and Skin Prep

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

Scuffed Parts and Skins

Started the day with a nice flight in Jared’s RV-14. We met up at KPUJ and flew down to KFFC where we met up with Wes and Skip who flew down from Cartersville in Wes’s RV-7. Lunch and a visit to Aircraft Spruce rounded out the afternoon. Then took the long way back to KPUJ. Awesome flight!

Got home and finished scuffing all the parts with some help from Sophie.

I Peeled the elevator and trim tab skins. Then I Deburred the edges and put a slight break in the trailing edge per the plans.

Finally, I scuffed the insides of the skins.

All ready to shoot primer and start dimpling tomorrow.

Today’s Time (hours):	3.0
Empennage Time (hours):	91.0
Total Time (hours):	91.0

More Work on Elevators

Jared Solomon and Wes Greer stopped by today and helped move the elevators along. I really appreciate having experienced builders helping me out. Things went really fast and their advice is incredibly valuable. Had lot’s of fun building together, too. Thanks guys!

Today we final drilled the tip ribs to one another and to the counterweight skins. We cut the foam trailing edge and trim tab ribs. We trimmed and deburred the trim tab skins. We trimmed the right elevator aft spar. We bent the closeout tabs on the left elevator skin. We fit and drilled the trim tab hinge. We clecoed everything together and fit/trimmed the elevator trailing edges.

Jared and Wes went home and I continued building. Not even ten minutes unsupervised and I screwed up! I misunderstood the interface between the trailing edge extrusion and the elevator wing tip. I removed way too much material from the trailing edge. I didn’t realize that the wing tip would be trimmed and butt up against the trailing edge. Had I read forward to the “Empennage Fairings” section, I would have understood how this went together. Oh well… Ordered a new trailing edge from Van’s.

Today’s Time (hours):	5.0
Empennage Time (hours):	85.0
Total Time (hours):	85.0

Elevator Parts Prep

Cut and deburred the edges of the elevator ribs and clecoed them together. Also cut and deburred the shear clips.

Straightened and fluted the tip ribs. Deburred the edges of the ribs and the counterweight skins. Clecoed everything together. Ready for drilling.

Copied the plans page with the templates for the foam trailing edge ribs and the trim tab ribs. Checked to ensure that the copy was 1:1 withe respect to the original.

Today’s Time (hours):	3.0
Empennage Time (hours):	80.0
Total Time (hours):	80.0

Countersunk spar flanges and Stringers and dimpled skins

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

Prepared HS Ribs

Deburred all the HS ribs with 400 grit sand paper. Sand paper seemed like the most straightforward approach because of all the segments in the flanges. I was able to get in between the segments with it.

I fluted the ribs and modified the two nose ribs and two inspar ribs per the plans and marked them.

I drilled the inboard nose and inspar ribs to the forward spar. Then I deburred all the holes in all the ribs and then dimpled all the ones that mate up to the skins. So. Many. Holes. I can’t even imagine what the wings are going to be like.

I also created a template to make cradles to hold the HS when assembling. I’ll scrounge some plywood to cut them from and some sort of square stock for the bases.

Today’s Time (hours):	3.0
Empennage Time (hours):	61.0
Total Time (hours):	61.0