Tonight I put my new pop rivet dimple die to work, and installed the landing light brackets on the wings. This was the first time I worked on the QB wings themselves. I practiced with the pop riveter, getting a feel for just how much pressure can/should be applied. I snapped the shanks off a couple of nails before settling on the right amount of pressure (not much). I was able to get to all of the holes with both wings in the stands, but it was also obvious I’ll need these wings on a bench to finish the job.
Outside view of pop riveter. A stainless construction nail serves as the shank.Inside view. The head of the nail visible in the center of the female die
With the dimples set and looking good, I went ahead and riveted the two brackets (one per wing). The rivets were easy enough to buck, even in the wing stand.
Over the weekend, I started on the landing lights. The holes for the lights are already cut into the leading edge of the wing, but annoyingly the holes for the landing light mount are not dimpled. In a slow build, these holes could be dimpled with the DRDT-2, but at this stage of assembly, I need a custom tool to reach the holes. I picked up a dimpler that works with a pop-rivet gun. The dies are cut so that a nail can be passed through the center of each, and inserted in a pop rivet gun. The gun pulls the dimple dies together to form the dimple.
3/32 size dimple dies, for use with a pop rivet gun. Makes accessing hard-to-reach holes easier to dimple
Anyway, I got started by dimpling the brackets and attach strips, along with the 20 nutplates.
Landing light attach brackets
Then I primed the parts, going for a thicker coat on the brackets which will be partially visible inside the light cove.
Primed landing light brackets. Note the VS attach plate in the background, which I also primed.
Per the plans, I also painted the inside of the light cove with my white epoxy primer. I’m just trying to keep the color consistent, and not really worried about final paint at this stage. My paint gun *just* fit inside the lightening hole in the outboard rib, so I was able to paint the sides of the ribs, and the inside of the skin.
Landing light cove. Hard to tell, but the visible areas of this cove are primed with white paint
The next day, with the paint dried I riveted the nutplates to the brackets and attach strips. I used my new “main squeeze” hand squeezer for all the rivets, securing the squeezer in the vice and holding the work. This went quite well, and I definitely love the squeezer. It requires very little force to squeeze the rivet, and is compatible with all of my existing yokes.
Riveting nutplates with the Main SqueezeNutplates installed on the landing light brackets
The last week has been busy, and my time in the garage has been spent cleaning up and reorganizing. I picked up a small tool cart that I can wheel around the garage to keep tools where I need them, without getting them scattered around the place. The cleanup was long overdue, and make me feel more organized.
I also spent time reading and researching the wings, and going through the chapters covered by the Quick Builders.
The first parts of the wing kit I will be working on are the landing lights, at least the housing and covers for the lights. These are located at the ends of the wings, and were obscured by my wing stand. To work around the issue, I modified my wing stand by building another carpet strap just inboard of the existing one. It was slightly challenging as the wings were in the way, and I didn’t want to lift them out of the cradle. I worked around that, and they came out ok.
Today I officially finished section 10, the aft fuselage. With the empennage attachment finished, I completed the final step in section 10, riveting the forward bulkhead to the top skin rib.
I positioned the aft fuse on my work benches, and rolled it onto it’s side. By lying down inside the fuse, I was able to rivet 2/3 of the rivets using my new “main squeeze” hand rivet squeezer. The last rivet needed to be bucked as it was too tight against the skin, and the rib. Using a double off-set in my rivet gun I bucked it. Not my best rivet, but good enough.
Then I completed the aft fuse by screwing on the inspection port covers on the aft end. After I located the correct set of 16 screws, I had a frustrating time with a couple of the nutplates, where the screw wouldn’t sit squarely in the hole and wouldn’t engage with the nutplate. Withou the covers in place I was able to get the screws in, and that seemed to fix the issue. Covers are now installed.
Today was a big day, as I was able to attached the Vertical Stabilizer and hang the rudder on the aft fuse. I then added the elevators and finished up section 11. Well, it’s not really done, as there is some electrical routing that still needs to be done, but that can wait for now.
First I installed the VS attach bracket, then the Vertical Stabilzer itself. I used temporary fasteners, as this is all coming apart again soon.
Installing the VS was easy after the HS was finally installed.
With the VS on, I attempted to hang the rudder. Everything looked good except the gap on the top hinge was too narrow for the rod end bearing to fit. I took the rudder off and attempted to bend out the Ganges on the hing using a small wooden block. Measuring with my calipers, I found it to be about a millimeter narrower than the middle hinge. After several attempts, and with Jen’s help, I was able to get it to fit.
Installing the rudder took several iterations. The hold-up was an insufficient gap between the flanges of the top hung. Once I had widened these flanges, the rod end bearing slipped in perfectly
With the rudder on, I installed the elevators. This required supporting the tips of the HS so that the elevator counterweights didn’t cause the fuse to roll over as I installed these one at a time.
Amazing feeling to see all these parts come together. It’s a tangible reminder of the work I have put in over the last year.
With the elevators on, I measured the clearance between the rudder and corner of elevator and trim tab. It was 3mm more gap than the minimum, so I left it as-is.
Rudder swings free and clear, and clearances on the elevators look good. I could shave a small amount off the rudder stops, but I’m within 3mm of the minimum clearance, so will keep as-if for now.
I had been stuck for a few days, as I didn’t have the right drill bits to finish enlarging the holes on the rear spar. I did have a 1/4 inch drill, but I really wanted a reamer. I reached out to my friend Murlin who offered to lend me some bits while mine were in-route from Aircraft Spruce.
Using a #C drill bit, and a 1/4 inch reamer, I drilled a perfect hole in the top right side of the spar. The bottom two holes were positioned such that I needed a longer drill bit to clear the aft fuse. Rummaging through my box of used tools, I found a 12 inch long 1/4 inch drill bit, and a 12 inch long 3/16ths bit. This was quite lucky! I practiced with them on some scrap to ensure they worked ok, then drilled two more great holes through the spar. Not as clean as the reamer, but close enough.
I drilled the holes above and below the two clecos in the picture. At this point just one last hole remains to be drilled in the bottom left corner of the rear sparBolting on the HS
With the holes drilled, I bolted on the Horizontal Stabilizer.
Today I rearranged the benches in the shop, then installed the HS on the aft fuse. It’s neat to have this attached and to see how it all fits beautifully together.
Mounting the horizontal stabilizer to the aft fuseHorizontal Stabilizer mounted to the aft fuselage
