MOVING DAY!!!!!!

Today was the big day. MOVING DAY!!!!!!  The weather finally cooperated so the roads would be dry to get the plane to the hangar. I had the help of 3 of my kids. Everything went smoothly.  We got it unloaded and put into my hangar, just in time for one of my boys soccer game.

After we arrived back home I worked on trimming the wing skins to allow room for the seal. The wings were then loaded onto the trailer. Once we get some nice weather again they will be taken to the hangar.

Time: 2.5 hrs

Ready to leave shop

Backing into hangar

Unloading

B and plane

RV12 in hangar

Plane and I

My helping hands

Wing skin trim

Wings loaded onto trailer

Tool organizing / Wing adjustments

I spend a few hrs organizing tools in preparation for getting them to the hangar. I had to decide what tools went and which stayed at home in my shop. I then received the vinyl N # placard that I ordered at doityourselflettering.com. It is also where I ordered the vinyl numbers for the tail. 

I then loaded some items into my truck that I wanted to get to the hangar and made sure the trailer was all ready to go. 

I had a few moments and still needed to work on trimming the wings to allow space for the seal. I trimmed and filed the lower edges of each wing while it was in the cradle. The upper edge will be easier to do out of the cradle and on saw horses, so I will do that once the plane and trailer are out of the shop.

Time: 2.5 hrs

N # placard

Loaded and ready for transport

Wheel chocks / tail support

The past month or two have been quite busy. We spent a week and a half in Guatemala on a dental humanitarian trip.  A lot of our time over the past month or so has been in preparing for that trip and catching up on things afterwards. So today I was able to get back out in the shop and do some work on the plane.

I decided I would go ahead and make some PVC wheel chocks so I cut 3 pieces of PVC at a length of 7 1/2" and glued them together with elbows.  With no engine installed the plane is tail heavy so I decided to make a nice support on wheels to keep it up.  I utilized parts from the support I had the tail cone on.  I think it works pretty good.

Now we just need some good weather so I can roll the plane out of the shop and continue work on the wing attach.

Time: 1.25 hrs

PVC Wheel Chock

Tail Support

River gun repair / rudder pedals

So the parts for the rivet gun arrived today.  I spent 45 minutes replacing that parts, gun didn't work.  I then thought that I needed to recharge the hydraulics, so I went through the steps and it still didn't work.  I have come to the conclusion that I don't know how to repair a rivet gun.  I am sure there is something simple I have to do, but rather then spend more time repairing a gun when I could be building I decided I would send it in for repairs.  It will take 3-4 weeks to get it back, but in the meantime there are other sections I can be working on.  I would rather hold off riveting the sides until I have the gun as it would be a lot faster then by hand.

I worked on the rudder pedals and brakes some more. The other pedals were drilled and the pedal blocks and brake cylinders installed.

I clecoed the rollbar and braces to the fuselage. I then enlarged the hole in the roll bar attach plates for the canopy light wiring.


Time:  3 hrs

Match drilling pedals

Grease used on brake pedals

Pedal blocks

Roll bar and brace riveted

Hole enlarged for Cockpit light wiring

Longerons completed, side skins started, rivet gun jammed

Today was productive, but ended in frustration.  I continued work on the longeron which involved the side skin. The longeron was put in place and the side skin clecoed. I then match drilled the longeron. The parts were disassembled and deburred.  The side skin was prepared for the wing by opening as per plans.  I then primed the longeron, doublers, and side skin as per plans.  All this took about 4 and half hours.

This evening with the kids home I thought I could get some good help and complete the side skins this evening.  Well, that didn't happen and ended in frustration.  T and B helped me for a bit.  We started by attaching the nutplates to the side skin as per plans.  These use CCR-264SS-3-2 rivets which the shanks seem to get caught in my hand riveter. Since we have several to put in I thought I would change the tip on the rivet gun and use it to save on time.  BAD MISTAKE. I placed the first one and the rivet shank got caught in the rivet gun.  It seemed to dislodge easy, so I did a second, and then a third. By the time I got to the third the rivet gun stopped working.  This was disappointing in that we have a lot of rivets to place on the side skin and this would prevent us from easily doing them.  I finished the nutplate rivets with the hand squeezer and B and T clecoed the right skin to the fuselage.

T and I then spent 2 and half hours on disassembling the rivet gun to clear the jam.  It took us a bit to find out what was going on.  There ended up being 2 shanks got in the gun.  We were finally after 2 hours able to get access to them and remove them. We then put the gun back together, but then the gun would not move.  The piston seemed to be catching.  After messing with it for a bit it was decided that I would order the parts to replace the rod seal (rod seal kit) along with the lubricant, hydrolic fluid, and jaw lubricant as per rivet gun manual.  As soon as I get them in then I will hopefully be able to resurrect the gun.  I may have to recharge the hydrolic fluid, I am not sure.  This is a little set back, but there are always other things we can do in the mean time.  I will most likely move on to another section until the parts arrive and we get the gun working again.

Time:  7 hrs.

Longerons in place

Opening side skin for wing

Attaching Gusset 

Side skin in place

Longeron, doubler and side skin priming.

Cockpit light bracket, seat backs, paint samples

Since I am waiting on the longeron dies to complete the longerons, I decided to work on some other items.  I first prepared the roll bar for the cockpit light bracket.  I will probably wait to unstall it until after I have painted the roll bar.

Speaking of paint, I have been trying to decide on what paint to use on the inside.  I am planning at this point to order the interior carpets and sides including in that baggage area, so not a lot will be visible, but at the same time it would be nice to have the interior all painted just in case I don't get the interior kit and just because it would be good to have a consistent color under the carpet.  I tried a few sample on the trim tabs that were deformed.  The 4 I tried were Rustoleum brands: 1. Dark machine grey, grey hammered, black hammered, and black textured.  I also tried a matt overcoat on half of some of them to see how the matt finish would look.  My conclusion is that the texture didn't go on well.  Probably because I didn't practice with it enough. And although it can look good, I worry about the rough finish and cleans-ability. The hammered looked pretty good as far as texure with the first coat, but the second coat the hammered finished was reduced some.  The dark machine grey went on well.  So at this point I will most likely use the dark machine grey for the bulk of the inside with possibly some other colors for accents in areas.  The panel I will probably use the dark hammered or possibly to a carbon panel.  I will wait to decide that later.

I decided to go ahead and work on the seat backs since they wouldn't take long and would fill some time as I wait to proceed with the longerons. All the seat back parts were prepared.  Several hinges were fabricated and match drilled. The parts were clecoed together and ready for riveting.

Time: 2.5 hrs.

Cockpit light bracket

Interior paint samples

Seat back parts prepped

Seat back brace

Seat back cleoed

Wing stand

Since we are waiting for the wing kit to get ready to be picked up I thought I would get ahead a little and create a wing cradle.  While doing that we also created a brace for the tail of the wing cone.  It is a little back heavy so it was wanting to tip up in the front. This helped stabilize it.

Time:  2hrs

Tailcone Brace

Wing Cradle

Empennage attachment

Well it has been a rough day on the RV12 build.  T and N helped me today. First we spent an hour this morning building a tail cone cradle.  It turned out pretty good. We then attached the VS and rudder to the tail cone. That went fairly smoothly.  We then spend about 2 hours attaching the stabilator to the tail cone.  We previous had super glued washers onto the hinge bracket as per instructions, but the fit was tight on the outside, so the washers broke loose.  It is a very hard area to get to.  We super glued the washers again and after several attempts we were able to get the stabilator attached.

N and I then worked on getting the AST assemblies attached. N noticed that there was blue pastic still in the AST assemblies. OOPS!!!  Don't know how that happened.  We then spend about an hour removing rivets, disassembling, removing plastic and reassembling the AST assemblies. We then tried attaching them to the stabilator. We quickly noticed that the right side assembly did not align up right at the hinges. We could tighly get it to fit, but I felt that it was not good to leave it that way.  I am going to discuss things with Vans and see how we can correct the problem.  I may need to make a whole new AST assembly.

Time: 5 hrs

Tail Cone Cradle

Attaching Rudder

Installing washer for stabilator

Stabilator attachment

Stabilator attached

Hinge area

Blue plastic inside AST assembly. OOPS!!!

Misalignment of right side AST Hinge

Right and left side AST Hinges not even.

Saw horses, Tail cone skin prep

Spent 1 hour today cutting and putting together a couple saw horses in preparation for tail cone assembly.  S and T helped me for a while today preparing the tail cone skins. We removed the plastic around the rivet areas and deburred the edges.  A few of them required placing a slight bend on the edges as per instructions. This was easily accomplished with a bending tool. This will allow for a tighter fit of the the edges of the skins when they are attached together.

We then started putting together the tail cone frames.

Priming Note:  At this point I have decided to not prime the tail cone as this section is easily accessible and instead of priming I may apply a solution such as corrosion x for corrosion resistance. The tail cone section and wings will be easier to apply in than the smaller sections built so far. Many do not prime their aircraft at all and have had no issues with corrosion.

Time: 4.5 hrs

Sawhorses

Tailcone Skin Prep

Fuselage Frames

Fuselage Frame

Plate and angle on 1210 Frame

FAA registration number reserved!

Just received confirmation in the mail today of the reservation of N number "N8697T" that we plan on using for this RV12 when we have it completed. Now we just need to finish the plane. 

Wings kit ordered

Since it will be about an 8 weeks time frame to get the wings kit I decided to go ahead and get it ordered today.  The empennage seems to be going together fairly quickly.  I didn't want to get it finished and then not have the wing kit here.  That gives me 8 weeks to finish the empennage which shouldn't be a problem.

Tools arrived! Construction started!

Tools arrived today from Cleaveland tools. We spent about an hour to inventory and organize them and then we started on the construction on the vertical stabilizer. We drilled and deburred the hinges, rear spar, and spar caps. T. was a good help with the deburring. 

I am waiting to start riveting until I decide whether to prime or not.  There is a lot of debate over the priming issue and I have yet to decide what would be best for my situation.  Priming would potentially help prevent corrosion and resale value, but it does require more time and would add weight to the airplane. Hopefully I can make up my mind soon.

Time: 3.5 hrs.

Cleaveland Tools

T. deburring edge

Hinges clecoed together

Vertical spar clecoed.

Tools ordered / parts organized

This morning I was able to get tools ordered.  I decided to go with the Cleaveland RV12 tool kit except instead of the pneumatic riveter that it is in the kit I ordered the Proset 1600 riveter which I was able to find at a good price on Amazon.  The Proset 1600 was highly recommended by Wally at Synergy Air especially since the RV12 has over 12,000 rivets.  I also order a few extra tools from Cleaveland such as the deburring disc, edge roller, scotch brite pads, and reamers.

I spent a little time this evening to organize all the small parts into storage drawers. We also pulled all the parts for the vertical stabilizer and removed the blue plastic.  That was about all we had time for today.

Small Parts Organized

Vertical Stabilizer Parts

Time: 1 1/2 hour.