Elevators - John 4 hours, Mike 2 hours, Tyler 1 hour

My oldest son came home yesterday from A&M to surprise me for Father's Day.  It was a great surprise and he, my youngest son, Ryan and my nephew, Mike, went out for dinner.  Great Surprise and a great day.

He is studying Aerospace Engineering so he is very interested in the RV Build.  He came over this afternoon and helped for a while.

I started the day off with bending the close out tabs.  This is a little nerve racking because once they are bent, it would be nearly impossible to change it.  If it didn't come out correct, it would be another replacement part order and I don't want to do that on something as large as the skins.  I clamped the skin to my workbench which is made of maple and then started the bend with my hands and a small block of wood followed by using the flush rivet head on the rivet gun and then finished with the hand seamer.  I think they came out real nice.  These are pictures from the end of the day when things were match drilled and clecoed together.

I moved on and clecoed and then match drilled the E-910 hinge reinforcements to the spar and then started building the elevators.  Mike and Tyler came out and things started moving a little faster.  It is nice to have someone move the clecoes around while you match drill things together, just have to come up with an easy system for doing so.   We were able to get to the point of having the skins on both sides and attaching the elevator horns.  It is nice to have something that resembles parts of an airplane in the garage so I left it that way.  The next step is to match drill the skins to the spar/ribs and then disassemble/debur/prime. 

I started to take off the protective covering off the wrong side on this one... 

Just have to be careful handling it.

Horizontal Stabilizer Part 2 and Elevators - John 6 hours, Jim 3 hours

Started getting the Inspar Ribs and Nose Ribs prepped for assembly.  Trimmed the 4 Inspar Ribs by removing the flange (2 with just flange cuts and 2 more with cutting of the small flange also).  Bent the Inspar Rib to match the angle for the fuselage and built the HS Cradles.

We were able to assemble most of it, but the HS-1013 Spar Cap Replacements haven't arrived so I clecoed the old ones in for spacing and match drilled the ribs to the front and rear spar, then disassembled everything for deburring and priming.  Also cut the holes to route the trim cables through.

Since we had to wait on the replacement parts, it was time to skip ahead and start on the Elevators.  I cut the E-1008A/B parts while Jim maned the scotch bright wheel and debured and smoothed all of them.  As he finished them, I clecoed them together and then match drilled the parts together.  

I also assembled the Tip Ribs before calling it a day.  

It was a good day and very productive even though I am waiting for PreKote and the Spar Caps...

I will have a lot of parts waiting for primer once the PreKote comes in.  I have a feeling that it will be a couple of long days scrubbing parts to get them ready for primmer.  

Horizontal Stabilizer - John 3 hours, Jim 3 hours

Jim came over and we worked on the Horizontal Stabilizer tonight.  I had already prepped the HS-1013, HS-1014 and HS-1015 parts.  we clecoed everything together and match drilled the HS-1013 to the main spar (HS-1002) and then I started to match drill the holes on the top and bottom of the channel when I noticed that we had made a slight but substantial mistake when we marked and clamped the HS-1013 Spar Cap in place.  It was off by about 1/4" and wasn't covering the holes it was supposed to.

Good here covering the 33rd hole but the mark is wrong which pulled the part too far one way.

This side isn't covering the 33rd hole...  Time to re-order the first part.

I knew I was going to make a mistake and have to order replacement parts sometime, just didn't want it to happen now.  It is good that the parts in question aren't too expensive, but it will take time for them to get here.  Stuff happens and we move on...

We did get the Front Spar Doubler marked and drilled.  Was able to get the 8 holes in the center counter sunk and the HS-1008-R/L attached.

Rudder Work - 2 hours

Just did a little work tonight.  Trimmed the rudder trailing edge and clecoed the second skin to the frame for the rudder, match drilled and marked the skins.

After that, I took everything apart for debur, prep and prime.  Sometimes I feel like I'm playing a big game of shoots and ladders.  One step forward, two back...  Oh well. :)

I am still missing the PreKote, it seems to be on back order.  I will do as much as I can and move on to the next step.  Looks like I will have a lot to prime once I'm ready.

Primer, Part 3

I have the primer, 3M PPS standard and mini cups, scotch bright pads here ready but I am still waiting for the PreKote and I found a couple mix/pour/seal lids for the 1 Gallon buckets that AKZO comes in and since I need to mix it and then pour a small amount most of the times that I will be using it, I wanted to find something that would minimize the waste.  I think that this will do the trick.  All things should be here this week, so it will be time to practice maybe next weekend and I am getting a lot of parts that are ready to be primed waiting.  All in all, good timing.

Mixing Mate

3M PPS Mini Cups - These go in the mini Cup and Collar

3M PPS Standard Cups - These go in the standard size Cup and Collar

AKZO Primer

PreKote

Gloves

Maroon and Green Scotch bright

Rudder work - Me 5 hours, Jim 3 hours.

Today was a productive day.  Jim from the local EAA club came by to assist and we were able to get a lot of the rudder together.  I cut and trimmed the rudder ribs before Jim arrived, but we got the ribs onto the spar and got the right skin attached.  Another day that we have what looks to be an airplane part in the garage.  Here is the product of today's work.

VS Takes Shape (3 hrs)

The second day was a little shorter. Ryan had his Senior Brunch, I can't believe that he is about to graduate High School.

Put the ribs and front spar on the rear spar for the Vertical Stabilizer today.  Had some difficulty getting the holes lined up on the second side of the skin and probably should have stopped there and done some research, but I pressed ahead with the confidence that Van's Instructions were right and that I had executed them in the correct manner...  Got it together, but then noticed that there are a couple outward bumps in the skin.  This was caused by the nose of the ribs in the bend of the skin.  First learning moment and bump in the road.  Should have stopped when it wasn't going together as it should and done some research... Not too bad of a price to pay, but still a price.

My small dents... :(  I don't think that they will be noticeable later.

Disassembled everything at the end of the day to do some more deburing and getting ready to prime.

The Journey Begins! (4 hrs)

With the success of the tool box fresh in my mind, I decided that I could start working on the Tail Kit.  The first step is to cut a 16" slice out of the Vertical Stabilizer Spar doublers.  Scary for the first step!  I have used my new band saw a couple times, but didn't like the cut it was making with the band that was included with it so I replaced it with a very fine tooth band and that seemed to cut a lot better.

I got the two doublers from the parts and measured twice and marked the cuts.  Here goes nothing!  After the cuts and running them on the deburing wheel for a bit, they looked pretty good if I did say so myself. :)

Pictures to come.

Spent the rest of the day clecoing, drilling, un-clecoing, deburing and reading the steps.  Did around 4 hours of work and then cleaned up the shop.  Not bad for a first day!

Kit Arrived!

The RV-10 Empennage (tail) kit arrived today!!  I wasn't too happy as the freight company decided that the arrows showing which side was up didn't mean anything and stood it on it's side.  Thanks to Ron's great packing, there wasn't (much) damage.  A little wear and tear on the protective film, but everything seems to be in good shape.

Pictures from Ron's Shop:

Rolled into my Shop, wasn't happy to see the hole at the end, but there wasn't any damage that I could see so I started to unpack and inventory.

You can see how some of the contents shifted due to the handling by the freight company.

Everything checked out and all was there.  Thanks RON!!!