Riveted the skin and worked on the baggage ribs and step bracket

Tammi helped me to rivet the bottom skin to the seat ribs. This was her first experience riveting. She’s a natural!

Riveted the power outlet bracket to the center ribs.

Blind riveted the seat rib angles to the seat ribs.

Dimpled and fluted the baggage ribs.

Final drilled and machine countersunk the step attach weldment. Dimpled the step attach angles and riveted them to the weldments.

Riveted the weldments to the outboard baggage ribs.

Dimpled the step attach ribs and riveted the doublers and nut plates to them.

Riveted the step attach ribs to the outboard baggage ribs.

Today’s Time (hours):	3.5
Fuselage Time (hours):	40.5
Total Time (hours):	495.0

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

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

Riveted Spars and Ribs in Left Elevator

I started off the day by taping the trailing edge to the bottom right elevator skin with the 3M VHB. tape.

I also completed the trim servo assembly. I need to order a crimper to terminate the wires from the trim servo with the supplied micro molex connector. I also need to get a label maker to label all the terminations.

Then my new squeezer set from Aircraft Spruce showed up. It’s nice having them relatively local. If I order by 4:00 they’ll ship same day and shipping via UPS ground gets it here next day from Peachtree City.

With the new squeezer sets I was able to complete the riveting of the hinge portion of the skin to the aft spar.

I essentially completed all of the steps that I did to the right elevator yesterday to the left elevator today. So now both elevators are ready to have the aft ribs glued and the trailing edges riveted.

Today’s Time (hours):	6.0
Empennage Time (hours):	118.5
Total Time (hours):	118.5

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

Primed and Assembled Horizontal Stabilizer

Scuffed and primed the skins, ribs, stringers and center web.

Riveted together the inboard ribs, web, and stringers.

Clecoed and riveted the ribs to the front spar

Clecoed and riveted four nose ribs to the skins. Special thanks to Jared Solomon for lending me his HS cradles. Also for the awesome flight flight yesterday in his RV-14. Makes me want to build faster.

Clecoed the forward spar and associated substructure to the skins. Ready for final riveting. Should have the HS buttoned up tomorrow!

A very satisfying day of progress!

Today’s Time (hours):	5.0
Empennage Time (hours):	69.0
Total Time (hours):	69.0

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