EMpennage/tailcone
Work has continued on the tailcone for the past several weeks, although a good 3 weeks was lost to poor weather and scheduling conflicts while waiting to get the parts primed. Things finally improved enough to prime over 2 (non-continuous) sessions. We're now at section 10-20 and readying for riveting of the tailcone.
Did run into one issue during re-assembly. The plans are explicit during inital assembly that you aren't to match-drill and/or dimple any holes associated with the F-1006 bulkhead. The holes in the underlying longerons and j-channel stiffeners are countersunk/dimpled as required, so during reassembly, it becomes apparent that you are clekoing a non-dimpled skin hole over a countersunk hole in the F-1032 longerons and the F-1047 stiffeners. The problem is when it comes to riveting, you won't be able to later dimple the skin at the foremost holes for the F-1047 as they will be riveted all the way up to that hole. Van's Air Force did show others have had this concern but there was really no final solution shared. Contacted Van's tech support and was given the go-ahead to dimple these 6 holes now.
0 Comments
Great productivity this week and weekend! I have completed up through 10-15, Step 1 and am at the point of disassembly of the tailcone. I'm holding up here while I wait for delivery of the Cleaveland angle drill kit that I just ordered to assist in match-drilling the holes for the 2 ELT mounting brackets I'm installing on either side of the tailcone behind the baggage bulkhead. The plan is to utilize the left one for the ELT, and the right one will likely be used to mount some of the hardware for the oxygen system. I'm also waiting for my pitot/static/AOA kit with static ports from Dynon so that I can drill out the holes in the side skins as called for in 10-14, Step 3. Meanwhile I will skip ahead to 10-16 and start on the battery/belcrank mount. I did hear from Van's Tech Support this week and they confirmed I could utilize the longeron with the rogue #40 hole in it so long as it was in place where edge distance requirements could be met and it wasn't too close to one of the pre-drilled rivet holes. I couldn't be any more lucky in that my rogue hole is almost perfectly centered between two rivet holes....WHEW!! Also succeeded in getting the horizontal stab hung on the wall above the garage door. I was not enjoying maneuvering around that thing on the floor. Really hitting a stride with reaching 19.3 hours of work from Sunday 2/26 through Saturday 3/4...almost hit my 20-hour weekly goal!
Tonight I got the left side j-stringers match drilled to the F-1073 side skin. Certainly glad to have this tedious task behind me. I found that it took close to a half hour to match-drill each j-stringer while placing a cleko in each hole along the way. Also got the rudder stop stiffeners and rudder stop brace in place, and attached the F-1006 bulkead. We are now complete through section 10-9, step 2.
This was an exciting week of building! Seeing the tailcone start to take shape (for me) drives home the reality of what we're doing here. There were certainly some monotonous times as well with the cutting of j-channels and then match-drilling them to the skins. For marking the line along the length of the j-channels, I did steal an idea I'd seen online. I super glued two popsicle sticks together with the bottom one cut square and offset 5/16" from a #40 hole. I was then able to poke a Sharpie through the hole and run this makeshift jig along the edge of the j-channel. Wasn't perfect, but was far better than piecing together lines from a straightedge. As for the actual match-drilling, it seemed like the holes went on forever. Still not done with that; have the left side to finish on my next outing. I did make one bonehead mistake. In section 10-6, step 1, you are to cut two pieces of aluminum angle stock to size, then make seperate marks where you will bend it and where you will drill a pilot hole to make a notch in the material. On the first one, I made the marks at 20 11/16" for the bend and at 7 7/16" for the pilot hole. When I went to mark the 15/32" edge distance for the pilot, I erroneously made it on the bend line and didn't catch it until after I'd drilled the #40 hole. I flipped the part end-over-end and proceeded on since it wasn't bent. Still waiting on confirmation from Van's tech support as to whether this will be acceptable, or if I have to replace the part. Otherwise, things are moving along smartly!
Spent the first part of this period riveting the vertical stab that has been sitting around with just clekos for a while now. Completing the horizontal gave me the courage to attempt riveting it by myself. Pretty happy with the result. Worked some on Friday night prepping elevator ribs, then a good chunk of Saturday basically assembling the elevators. Got up through 9-7, Step 2 before calling it quits. Not much more fabrication left before it all comes apart to prep for final assembly.
Work on the project has been a little sporradic of the last month due to a long weekend away to check out the beautiful scenery in Utah, attending high school wrestling matches and tournaments, and pickup and inventory of our fuselage kit. In spite of the distractions I am happy to report that the horizontal stabilizer is FINISHED! Well, it's at least finished for now up to the last step of riveting on the rear spar. That will wait until Van's makes a final decision on the impact of Service Bulletin SB-00036 which relates to said spar and the elevator attach brackets. If I do indeed need to replace the brackets, it'll be much easier to do with the spar removed. For now, the HS will be relegated to wall art. On to final riveting of the vertical stab and then construction of the elevators!
Finally made it through the tedious task of deburring and dimpling all of the holes in the horizontal stab spars and skins. That seemed to go on forever and I feel it was a bit of a warning of what is to come with the wings. Anyhow, it is done and all parts are now primed and ready for final reassembly and riveting. The horizontal is now complete through section 8-10.
Still plugging away on the horizontal stabilizer. Made good progress on the more tedious task of deburring and dimpling the many ribs. Also got the inboard rib and stringer assembly riveted together. Now just need to countersink the flanges on the front and rear spars and we'll be moving on to final assembly!
I've been terribly remiss in both build log posts and progress on the kit since the end of August. We have had seemingly endless distractions ranging from a Mexican vacation to school sports, teaching the youngest to drive, etc., etc. Excuses aside, progress as of late has been becoming increasingly steady and we are very close to banging rivets on the horizontal stab. We should be back on track with more frequent posts and (hopefully) much faster progress moving forward!
Progress has been steady this week unlike my blog updates. Today also marks the end of my first week of meeting my 20 hour/wk goal since starting the project - this week clocked in at 21 hours. The rudder is complete, the skin is cleco'ed on to the vertical stab, and work has commenced on Section 8 - the vertical stabilizier! I'd really been sweating the riveting of the trailing edge. I used the Cleaveland Tools trailing edge squeezer dies paired with my trusty old manual squeezer. I elected to do the manual on these rivets due the the amount of control it gave me over the squeeze. I'm very pleased with the overall results! Now it was on to the next task that I haven't been looking forward to - rolling of the rudder's leading edge. The top and bottom sections came out great, but the middle gave me some fits and I did end up with minor pillowing between about the middle 6 rivets. Overall I'm pleased with the results. It is far from perfect, but as others have said, chasing perfection will turn this into a project that never gets completed. Rudder is DONE! Next up I decided to cleko the vertical stab skin onto the skeleton. I've still been waiting for an opportune time to teach my wife to operate the rivet gun so we can get this skin bucked. Right now I'm thinking I may push through until the horizontal skins need riveting, then we can make a day of getting it all wrapped up. As for the vertical, I did end up needing to trim some more off of the nose rib flanges to get them to fit into the front of the skin without buckling it or creating that bulge/dent that others have complained about. Got it done and its looking pretty good! Excited to move on to working on the horizontal stabilizer. Before work commenced, I had to take some time to pull out my other EAA workbench, get some carpet on it, and adjust the leveling feet to provide for a nice level surface across the two benches. One thing is for certain - this horizonal stabilizer is LONG! Completed 8-2 steps 1-4, and while the parts were air drying after their EkoEtch treatment, I knocked out 8-3 step 1 - riveting the inboard hinge brackets and the flange bearing. Got the rear spar parts primed and called it a day. I'll complete 8-2 tomorrow with riveting the rear spar since the primer will have been able to cure overnight.
|
Archives
April 2023
Categories |