Primed all the aluminum firewall parts.
Machine countersunk the firewall angles and riveted on the support angle.
Dimpled the tunnel sides and riveted the nutplates to the top flanges. Dimpled the cover angle brackets and riveted nutplates to the top flanges. Then riveted the brackets to the tunnel sides. Riveted the nose gear brackets and firewall angles to the tunnel sides.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 3.0 |
| Fuselage Time (hours): | 51.5 |
| Total Time (hours): | 506.0 |
Primed all the mid fuse lower structure parts. There are a lot of them!
Riveted the doublers to the baggage ribs.
Dimpled the seat ribs. Riveted in the nut plates. Riveted the bushing clips to the ribs. Riveted in the rib doublers. Riveted in the routing angles. Riveted the crotch strap brackets to the ribs.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 4.0 |
| Fuselage Time (hours): | 26.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 480.5 |
Primed all of the parts.
Dimpled the bulkhead and side channels.
Riveted the doubles to the bulkhead.
Riveted the side channels and doublers to the bulkhead. Unfortunately I didn’t see the note in the instructions indicating that the manufactured heads should be on the aft side until after I had driven all the rivets. So I got to drill them all out and do them again. Yay.
All’s well that ends well.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 3.0 |
| Fuselage Time (hours): | 6.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 460.5 |
Drilled holes for and installed angle of attack sensor tubing. Also ran wires for pitot heat.
Drilled the rivet holes for all the aileron push tube ends and prepared all the parts for priming.
Primed all the remaining wing parts.
Installed the aileron and flap gap fairings.
Assembled the ADAHRS mounting bracket.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 7.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 249.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 401.0 |
Primed all the aileron parts.
Riveted the various hinges and doublers to the various ribs.
Clecoed the nose ribs to the spars and set in the skins with the stainless counterbalance tubes. Match drilled the inboard and outboard holes from the leading edge of the skins to the counterbalance.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 4.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 175.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 387.0 |
Primed everything
Riveted the nutplates and doublers to the rod end ribs.
Riveted the hinge halves to the ribs. Then installed the hardware and double flush riveted the halves together.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 2.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 158.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 369.0 |
When I bought my tools I bought my tools for this project, I decided to buy a DRDT-2 dimpler. I decided not to bother with a c-frame. Until this point I have not found anything that I couldn’t do without a c-frame. Today I needed to fill the locating holes in the inboard and outboard ribs with AN470AD6-5 rivets. I don’t own any tool capable of setting those big rivets reliably. Fortunately Jared offered up his c-frame and I went to his house and got these rivets set. Thanks, man! Ended up cutting the rivets down to like a 6-3. They are not structural and they were way to long. They just plug up the machining holes in the external fuel tank ribs. The shorter rivets set perfectly with the c-frame and a heavy hammer.
I primed the exterior side of all the fuel tank parts.
I riveted the bearings for the aileron controls to the tank attach bracket.
I riveted the shims and nutplates to the tank attach brackets.
I riveted the nutplates to the aft inboard ribs. I couldn’t get a mushroom set in between the clecos to rivet these. So I used a back rivet set on the tail and a bucking bar on the factory head.
I’ve completed everything I can on the Tanks until I get the J-Channel I ordered from Van’s. On the bright side… I received the tools I need to install the landing light lenses so that will be tomorrow’s project.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 3.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 133.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 344.0 |
I deburred, scuffed and primed all of the remaining empennage parts including the top skin and the upper side skins. I’ve just about run out of parts. Once I get my static line and nut plates from Van’s, I’ll be able to finish riveting everything.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 3.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 173.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 173.0 |
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 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 |
Ron's RV-14A Build Log 