Tonight I completed a couple of steps on the wings. I countersunk the holes in the rear spar where the flap gap fairing attaches, dimpled the access hatch doubler, and enlarged the holes in the landing light mounts.
Wing metal work
Finish Kit Inventory Finished
I wrapped up the finish kit inventory today. There were quite a few missing components, so I sent the missing-parts-list to Vans for processing. No pictures, but I am using the crate to store the canopy, engine mount, gear legs, cowling, and other fiberglass fairings.
Finish Kit Inventory
Yesterday the finish kit crate was delivered by the shipping company. Tonight I started working on inventory, and slowly checked off the assorted items.
The crate arrived without any damage, and I put it onto the dolly I had made for the QB fuselage. It’s 4×8 feet, and the crate is about 4×6 feet, and maybe 3 feet tall.
I opened up the crate and began removing cardboard and paper. The parts were well packed and undamaged. I pulled out a huge amount of packing paper, being careful to check for parts as I went. The canopy is the first obvious part in the box, and carefully positioned under the canopy is the engine cowling, and under that some cardboard boxes with heavier steel parts. In the other end of the crate, carefully secured, is the engine mount and gear legs. On top of the engine mount, and stacked around it all are various aluminum and fiberglass parts.
Tonight I started inventorying all the parts, which is a painstaking, but interesting, task. I hardly made a dent on the parts lists, but hope to finish it up tomorrow If I can.
Wing systems hole enlarging
Tonight I used my step drill to up-size two sets of wing system holes in the left wing. one will carry the AOA and Pitot pneumatic lines, and the other will carry the addition wiring for the pitot heating unit.
More riveting
Over the last couple of evenings I completed one more step in the Aft Fuselage Attach chapter. It’s slow going, but that has been a combination of tricky to access rivets, and a lack of time to work on the plane. I’ve been chipping away at it to keep some momentum going, which is the most important thing I think.
The step I completed was riveting the baggage compartment floor ribs to the bulkhead at the back of the baggage compartment. There are 4 ribs on each side, but the outermost are riveted later, as they need to be flexed out of the way to set the lap-joint rivets. For the 6 ribs that were riveted in this step, I used my gun with offset rivet set to get the 470 head rivets. It was a bit questionable, because I couldn’t get the gun completely square on a few rivets, but mostly the shop heads came out looking great. The bottom rivets on each rib are pop riveted, because it’s just too tight down there. I dusted off my pneumatic pop riveter, tested it, found my “wedge”, and then set them with surprising ease and good results.
Next step is riveting the ribs to the skin on the forward side of the fuse join, on sides and bottom skins, then it’s onto the lap joints, and finally the last baggage floor rib.
New Wings Arrive
My first set of Quickbuild wings had some corrosion, and bad primer, and I sent them back to Vans for replacement. Today the new set of Quickbuild wings arrived, and were safely stowed inside the garage.
I still need to receive an order from Vans with some replacement parts before I can really get started with these.
More riveting
Tonight I completed another step in the fuse attach section. Relatively easy riveting, nothing that needed redoing.
Riveting
Tonight I set a few more rivets, including the first few rivets that actually joined the two halves of the fuselage. Up to this point the riveting has been aft fuse to bulkhead, tonight I worked forward and started riveting the two side skins together. I had to fiddle around a cut a couple of rivets to -5.5 size, since -5 seemed a bit too short. With all the layers being riveted, and all of them being primed, I’m going with slightly longer rivets to make sure they have a good shop head.
Riveting
Tonight I did some back riveting using a couple of tables I made the other day. I decided to back rivet the side skins, and probably as many rivets as I can, on the fuselage join. The main reason for back riveting these rivets is that access is very hard (not impossible) for bucking them by myself. The second reason is that back-riveting results is a nice flush finish where the skins come together. I found that the rivets closest to the bulkhead can’t be back-riveted due to the bulkhead interference with the gun, so I buck those last 4 on each side.
Progress was very slow as I decided to rivet these in small batches. Lots of adjusting and fiddling to get everything on just the right angle. But it was time well spent as they all came out looking good.
Top skin bulkhead attach
Today I riveted the aft fuse top side skins to the F-01406L and R bulkhead. This was straightforward, although the only way I could get the rivet beside the seatbelt lugs was to back-rivet. This necessitated using the little table and fiddling around to position the fuselage in exactly the right place. I had to redo a couple of rivets, but mostly these came out looking great.
