10 days has gone by since I posted something to the blog.  Thats all that has stopped though.  The build has continued VERY strong.  I'm afraid though that the empennage will be totally complete (including fiberglass) before the wings arrive.  I'll be on the look out for unbuilt wings in the classifieds.  If you know of anyone with RV-10 untouched wing kit, let me know.  I'm looking for a bargain to start wings sooner, otherwise, I'll just continue to save up for the kit from Vans Aircraft. 

Since the last post, The longerons, aft deck, top skins and seat belt brackets were clecod, and match drilled.  With that, came the dissasembly, and deburring of all parts.  The dissasembly is so depressing, lol.  Its exciting to see a huge part being built but then it all comes apart, ugh!  The kids came in one night and asked where the tail cone went.  My daughter thought I stuck it up in the attic.  "No honey, I took it apart."  "Why?"  "The instructions says to take it apart to prepart for final assembly."  "Oh ok."  

Took me 3 days to fully deburr all parts, sand and countersink a few parts.  Those were VERY long days.  A minmum of 10 hours a day, MINIMUM.  Deburring and sanding was extremely tedius.  Only when I got to the last part, a skin, did I need a break.  The though of deburring what seemed like a million holes instantly drained my energy tank.  After a 1hr break doing other things around the house, I was instantly reenergized and finishd the deburring and sanding. 

Next was to dimple and countersink some parts.  I opted to not dimple until after priming.  The dimples make priming (and sanding) a bit more difficult for an even coat.  Ended the night at 2230 after priming all parts.  After bringing all the parts inside at night, I noticed the 8 footish longerons standing up nice and tall by the garage side door, unprimed, ugh!  The next day I was sent home from work early.  I mixed up a small batch of AKZO and sprayed the longerons and touched up a few other parts.  Carmella and Benico wanted to help do some riveting today so after riveting the bellcrank bearing assembly, they helped find rivets, nutplates, and asembly parts by part number.  This is the first time they see parts being riveted together.  They helped place rivtes in holes where needed.  We have another riveting session planned for tonight.  Yesterday we riveted the battery tray.  Tonight we will start with the tiedown bulkhead assembly (had to skip to battery tray since one of the angles were not primed ether, primed it with the longerons). 

Check out the time lapse videos of the last 10 days.  Also don't forget to check out the rest of the videos on my you tube channel and post your questions, suggestions, or comments.  Your input would be greatly appreciated. 

 

 

Tail Cone 3

 

 

Tail Cone 4

 

 

Tail Cone 5



Another day full of match drilling.  Finished match drilling the right side. Flipped the cone right side up.  Clecod the aft bottom skin along with the two rear most bulkheads.   This last two bulkheads were really a tight fit. Next the left stiffners and fling went in. This skin was easier than the right. It might have been easier because I had a game plane after doing the right side. Straight forward, no different than the right side. Baggage stiffner went in too.

A lot of today was wasted on trying to cool the garage.  Todays heat index was at least 100 degrees F. Bought a 14000 btu portable AC a couple nights ago because the central ac took a dump.  After getting the central ac fixed. ( I replaced the capacitor 50 bucks )  I decided to give the portable ac in the garage a try. It dropped the temp in the garage by 2 degrees and 2% humidity after 4 hours!!   Needless to say, it was useless.  I returned it and replace it with a 12000 BTU window unit.   Big difference!! It dropped the humidity from 66% to 49% and temp from 88 to 82 in a couple hours.  A couple more hours and the temp was down to 79.   Temp was set for 79. With the humidity at 49%, this was very comfortable.  This is the biggist unit that would fit the window.  If I find this to still not be sufficient then a split unit will replace the window unit.  Plan on adding attic foil to the attic first though.

It is difficult to work on the build or anything for that matter in the garage when your sweaty and hot as early as 9am.

Any how,  stay tuned for more building!!!!

Today officially starts the start of the tail cone.  Up to this point, I worked on bits and pieces for the tail cone section.  Mainly the fabrication of parts from raw materials.  Because of all those parts had already been fabricated prior today on downtime from the elevators, the tail cone got a big head start.  Started off by pulling out the SUV from the garage (hopefully temporarily until the elevator trailing edges are cured, riveted, off the workbench, and stored).

Vans sent me new 8' J channels a few days ago so today I cut them to the dimensions called out in the plans and deburred.  Next I cut the Cleaveland Tool tie down to size on the band saw and deburred it smooth.  Then I had to come up with a way to lay the bottom skin on to start the assembly process.  Didn't have any saw horses so used a narrow folding table spaced away enough to lay the bottom skin between it and the work bench.   Bulkheads clecoed.  The bottom 3 stiffeners were slid into place, match drilled and clecoed into place.  Next the right side 3 stiffeners were slid into place followed by the right skin.  The right skin was a royal pain in the rear to get the first cleco into each bulkhead.  Really sweated some nuts doing those in the garage.  Glad that was over with.  After the first cleco on each bulk heads were in, then the rest was easy to cleco.  Next was match drilling the right side stiffeners to the skin.  I'm about 95% done with match drilling the stiffeners to the side skin.  My central AC took a dump.  House had not cooled in several hours so I had to stop at about 8pm to investigate.  Turns out the a/c compressor fan capacitor is seems to be toast.  The fan spins only when I kick start the fan.  Back to the RV...I only had maybe 10 more holes to match drill!  errrrr. 

 Here is the time lapse video of today's progress.

Elevator rear spar riveted using RV-10 empennage bucking bar (nice!).  Pop riveted the rib halves. Front spar riveted.  The skins were riveted to the spars.  Trailing edge and foam ribs were bonded and weighted down.  Counter weights attached.  Left trim tab foam ribs were bonded, skin clecoed,  Trim tab placed into the wedge blocks.  Waiting for the bonding to cure before messing with the elevator and trim tab.  Need to order a a new right trim tab skin and spar.  

Here is  a quick time lapse of todays events.

After work today, I finished riveting the the rib halves, and attached the rear spars to the ribs and skins.  Used the RV-10 elevator bucking bar from Cleveland Tools.  When used as instructed in the plans, it works very nicely.  I found clamping the skin to the work bench at the front of the elevator using the wood to protect the skin was even better.  Otherwise, the elevator would move around and rivets weren't as nice.  Here is a quick time lapse of todays work.

It wasn't raining after work today.  After getting home and the sun gone below the horizon, I setup for a quick priming session to touch up spots on some parts needed to assemble the elevators.  Waited about 10 minutes after mixing the 2 part epoxy primer.  PSI set for 20 PSI with HF paint gun trigger pulled, respirator, and eye protection on.  Sprayed the parts, cleaned up the spray gun and took a shower.  Watched a movie (Captain Phillips) with my wife and older son.  After the movie, I brought the parts in and called it a night at midnight.  Tomorrow is another day...  The replacement drill should arrive tomorrow too.

I really need to start taking pictures...

Quick night today.  I promised the wife and kids we would watch Jurassic Park 2 today on Netflix after work today.  So after a quick dinner and a shower I slipped into the garage while the kidos were getting the pop corn and movie ready.  I rechecked the rivets on the rear spar that required bucking with the rivet gauge. A few shop heads were not big enough.  Gave those a few more raps with the 3X rivet gun and bucking bar and all is good now.  Thats it for tonight.

Received an 8 foot PVC pipe today via FedEX from Vans Aircraft.  What a great way to ship the replacement J-channels for the empennage cone.

Also, contacted Cleaveland Tools and they already had a replacement drill in the mail via 2 day priority mail!  Now that is what I call TOP NOTCH service.  They also included a shipping label to return the defective drill!!  Oh yes, I'll be ordering from them again for sure!  Thank you Cleaveland Tools!!  If your on the fence of who to chose for your tools,  go with Cleaveland Tools.  You wont regret it!

I need to post some updated pictures.  I have also been messing around with time lapse videos that will be included in these blogs.

Stay tuned....