Finished riveting the bottom right skin

Finished riveting the bottom right skin.

Today’s Time (hours):	3.0
Wing Time (hours):	283.0
Total Time (hours):	435.0

Fuel Tanks: the struggle is real.

Fuel tanks are absolutely kicking my ass. I got back from Toronto last night and checked to see if the sealant had cured. The stuff I had applied Monday had hardened up nicely. The first batch from from Sunday was still gooey. Not cool. They came from the same can. So I must have made a mistake in mixing that batch.

I talked to Jared and Van’s. Consensus was that it may cure eventually but Van’s recommended that I re-seal these parts with properly mixed sealant. Unfortunately this meant removing 22 stiffeners, 2 fuel fillers, and 2 fuel drains. I had to drill out a couple hundred rivets and was left with a sticky mess. Thankfully the sealant on all of the ribs we had just riveted into the left skin was fine.

When the sealant is first applied, it wipes off easily with some lacquer thinner. Once it has started to cure, not so much. I’m headed to Aircraft Spruce tomorrow to pick up some PolyGone. It is specifically designed to remove polysulfide fuel tank sealant.

It was essential to my sanity that I make at least some modicum of forward progress today. So I bent up the rods for the fuel sender floats per the plans. Since the ribs were installed in the left tank, I was even able to fine tune the left sender to the proper clearances.

img_2859-1

Today’s Time (hours):	3.0
Wing Time (hours):	208.0
Total Time (hours):	360.0

Prepared tank stiffeners

Dimpled the nut plate attach holes in the inboard tank ribs.

Separated the stiffeners.

Used snips to make all the cuts. Doh! Should have peeled the blue vinyl off before I cut them.

Then cleaned them up on the scotch bright wheel, scuffed the mating surfaces and dimpled.

Today’s Time (hours):	2.0
Wing Time (hours):	127.0
Total Time (hours):	338.0

Riveted aft deck

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

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.