Much like the VS, my Dad helped install the rudder fairings. The rudder came out looking great, with the light installed and some wiring and a molex connector installed too.
Rudder fairings
Vertical Stab Fairing
With my Dad in town, it was great to get his expert advice and handiwork with the firbreglass fairings. Being a boat builder back in New Zealand, my Dad has a lifetime of skill and experience working with all kinds of things including fiberglass. He’s a master at the stuff, so he went to work on the rudder and vertical stabilizer fairings.
The VS fairing needs an insert of glass on the aft edge and Dad made quick work of getting it made up and glassed in. the only real challenge was getting the fairing square. The piece is molded in two half’s then glued together, but there seems to be some slight misalignment of the halves casing it to be slightly lopsided. Dad got it pretty straight, so it looks awesome.
Canopy Frame
Since the end of November, I’ve been working on the canopy frame. After debuting and priming everything, I spent time carefully following the steps called out in the plans. There is some fluting required that helps shape the substructure and allowing it to sit flush against the skin. Everything has gone well so far, and the frame seems to be coming together quite easily. Some of the steps in the plans appear out of order, but I’m doing the best I can to follow along.
Propeller Delivery
Today the propeller was delivered! It looks to be in good shape, so I moved the box inside and stored it up out of the way. I’ll hold off opening the box until I’m closer to installing it. With the amount of salt in the air here (not crazy, but still some) I’d rather keep it reasonably picked in the box vs. taking it out and exposing it to the elements.
Installing roll bar
Tonight I finished the roll bar install by riveting the last few rivets between the roll bar brace and the bulkhead, and the few remaining side skin rivets. For the rollbar to bulkhead rivets, I rolled the fuselage upside down and worked inside the cockpit. It’s so great being able to rotate it around freely, it makes working in the cockpit so much easier.
Installing roll bar
Tonight I installed the roll bar on the fuselage. The bar fit surprisingly well, it just slipped on like a perfectly-fitting shoe. I did have some alignment challenges on the right side, but after some fiddling around and using alignment tools, I was able to get it all to work. I riveted everything except a few rivets where the brace joins the bulkhead. I’ll get those with the rivet gun tomorrow when it’s not so late at night.
All was well until the very last river. It was getting late and I was hurrying to get to bed, and made a bad call. I was setting the last cherrymax rivet that held my fix in place, and the rivet was slightly misaligned. For some reason I thought it would straighten out, and I set the rivet on an angle. Instead of being flush with the top of the rollbar, the manufactured head was at an angle, with one edge protruding up. If it wasn’t a cherrymax, I would certainly drill it out and replace, but that’s so hard to do with a cherrymax. I decided to leave as-is and will use some filler to smooth out the surface. Super frustrating mistake after everything had gone so well.
Roll bar riveting
Tonight I riveted together the two halves of the roll bar. It took some time to get everything to line up just right, but I was carefully aligning and riveting in random order around the heaviest curves.
Roll bar riveting
Tonight I worked on my fix for the mistakenly countersunk roll bar flange. I finished the doubler, primed it, and glued it into position with clecos holding it in place. I needed to glue it so I could uncleco it without the doubler falling inside the rollbar.
I also made a test piece with exactly the same dimensions as the roll bar sandwich. I drilled two holes and tested the two different lengths of cherrymax rivets, because the thickness is almost exactly 1/4 inch, right between the two sizes. Based on this experiment, I chose the shorter length which gives a better looking shop head.
Riveting roll bar
Tonight I continued riveting the roll bar, and have both straps riveted to the forward roll bar assembly.
Roll bar fix
After talking to Kevin at Vans, I decided I can save the mistake I made in the roll bar by creating a sandwich of aluminum around the mistskenly countersunk part. I made up a doubler, and ordered some longer cherrymax rivets.
I also started riveting the roll bar straps into place.
