I placed my RV-14 Tail Kit order with Vans today, and filled in the required paperwork. The kit is in stock, so should be shipped within a week, and possibly here 2 weeks from now! Time to tidy up the garage and make room!
Practice Kit Part 9
Finished the toolbox today. Unfortunately I made a few mistakes in the final steps. I felt I was rushing a little, and consequently placed the latch attachment off-center by about 1/8th. It closes and locks fine, given the amount of play in the latch, but it looks annoying. Then I slipped while drilling the holes for the handle securing straps. I didn’t center punch the holes, but that was a big mistake. I should have put a block under the lid and then punched the holes to ensure they ended up in the correct location.
Practice Kit Part 8
Tonight I added the lid to the toolbox, and in the process made an annoying mistake. I cut the hinge to size before realizing that I needed to reverse the top part of the hinge to follow the directions precisely. The result was a choice between not being able to close the lid, and having a gap on one side of the hinge on the lid. I chose the latter, and riveted it in place.
Practice Kit Part 7
Today I started on the Toolbox Practice Kit. The first steps are to prep (match drill, debur, dimple) and rivet the sides to the body of the box. I wasn’t able to squeeze every rivet, so I ended up bucking a few along the bottom edge. This is progressing much faster than the previous practice kit.
Practice Kit Part 6
I finished the practice piece tonight! With everything ready to rivet, I got started by squeezing most of the rivets on the ribs on one skin. The last two rivets on the trailing edge of the rib are so tight I couldn’t squeeze then with the pneumatic squeezer. I got one with the hand squeezer, and for the last one I had to shape a thin bucking bar to get it done. Unfortunately I scratched the rib in the process, and the shop head was ugly. I got the second skin done following the same process, and added the trailing edge wedge before closing it up. Back riveting the trailing edge wedge was quite simple in the end, and it came out straight and clean. The last step was bending the leading edges of the skins and pop riveting them together. The first skin went well, with a nice uniform shape achieved. The second skin didn’t go quite as well, and I ended up with a bend that was less uniform. Once shaped, I wasn’t able change the radius of the bend, so I just went ahead and riveted it up to finish the project. Overall I was reasonably happy. I learned some lessons and figured out my tools, although I’d like to start again with a new practice kit and see how much better I could do next time. I would also like some practice priming with my spray gun before jumping into the airplane kit for real.
Practice Kit Part 5
No pictures today, but I worked on counter sinking the trailing edge wedge. I had read about the issues others have had in getting this thin piece shaped correctly. I proceeded very slowly, and was reasonably happy with the result. I’m sure I have a single-fluted counter sink somewhere, which I would have used, but I could not find it tonight. On the trailing edge, I ended up with a knife edge between the two sides of the holes, but it didn’t look like any real enlargement of the hole had happened.
Practice Kit Part 4
Today I riveted on the spar reinforcement plates and the ribs to the spar, and riveted the stiffeners to the skins, then riveted one of the skins to the spar. It was my first time using the rivet gun, having squeezed the other rivets. I inadvertently left the air hose at 90 PSI as I back-riveted my first couple of 3/32 rivet. The little things were completely mashed into the skin by the 3x gun, permanently deforming the skin. If this wasn’t a practice kit, I would have needed a new skin. It took a little trial and error before settling on 35 PSI for 3/32 rivets, and around 45 PSI for 1/8th rivets. My last row of stiffener rivets came out nicely.