Scuffed all the parts.
Peeled, Deburred, and scuffed the bottom skin.
Hit Harbor Freight today… Picked up a stand for my grinder and a new HVLP paint gun. Using the grinder on the bench has been a bit of a pain. Up to this point I was using a small touch-up gun for all of my priming. For the bigger sessions, I would have to refill the paint cup multiple times. This gun has a bigger cup and is better quality.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 2.0 |
| Fuselage Time (hours): | 20.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 474.5 |
Cleaned up the shop and picked and inspected the parts for the forward mid fuselage bulkheads.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 0.5 |
| Fuselage Time (hours): | 0.5 |
| Total Time (hours): | 451.0 |
Sorted all the rivets and hardware from the bags they arrived in into the parts organizers I picked up. Used the Dymo Rhino to label everything.
Added the wing and options plans to the plans binder.
Rearranged the shop and re-covered the work benches with new paper.
Unwrapped the spars and put them up on the work benches.
Ready to build!
| Today’s Time (hours): | 4.0 |
| Wing Time (hours): | 10.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 221.0 |
Read through the plans for the elevators and picked all the parts. I also cleaned up the workshop.
I ordered some fuel tank sealant from SkyGeek. Neither Van’s nor Spruce had pint cans. I only need enough to cement the elevator and trim tab ribs in place. And the stuff has a relatively short shelf life.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 1.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 77.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 77.0 |
Scuffed and prepped the new parts. Then sprayed them with primer.
Riveted the doubler and ribs to the forward spar.
Clecoed the skin to the forward spar and ribs and started riveting.
Finished riveting the skin to the forward spar and ribs.
Clecoed and riveted the rear spar to the skin and ribs.
VS Complete! Very pleased with how well it turned out. Once I replaced the parts I messed up, everything went smoothly. I’m much happier with my workmanship than the first attempt. A little experience makes a world of difference.
Rearranged the work benches and started picking parts for the horizontal stabilizer.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 3.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 46.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 46.0 |
I ordered the RV14 toolkit from Cleaveland Aircraft Tool with the pneumatic squeezer and DRDT2 options. It arrived yesterday and I unpacked and inventoried the contents. The pins to mount the toke to the squeezer were missing and the DRDT2 was shipped separately. I emailed Cleaveland last night and got a response first thing this morning with an apology for the oversight. They indicated they’d ship the missing parts immediately. Great service, Cleaveland!
Remy and I built two more worktables last weekend. Actually we built one together and Remy built the second one on his own Tuesday while I was away on business. His came out nicer than mine. We actually took the time to clamp the pieces and drill holes for the screws to avoid splitting the two by fours this time. We’ll move them down to the basement this weekend.
I’ve decided to build my RV14 in my basement. It has heat and AC. There’s plenty of space. It’s reasonably isolated from everyone else’s day to day activities. The garage would have been cramped, cold in the winter, hot in the summer, I would have to keep my car outside, and the garage is also our main means if ingress and egress. So an airplane factory in the garage would have inconvenienced everyone.
I completed the second worktable and Remy helped me move them into the basement from the garage. I’ll keep you posted as I organize the workshops and start to acquire the tools I need.
I sent off an email to Van’s with some questions about shipping, payment, and such that I needed to know before I place an order for my empennage kit.
Ron's RV-14A Build Log 