Nate's RV-12 Build

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Bulkhead finished. Start section 21

Section 20, center bulkhead, was completed today by first attaching the skin attach flanges to the bottom of the bulkhead. The aft bulkhead and side bulkhead were then riveted and then skin stiffeners added.

It was then on to start section 21 which has quite a few pages so will take some time to complete this section. I started by dimpling the baggage floors as per plans. The baggage floors were then riveted to the bulkhead. This ended up being a little tricky as the rivets were very close to the baggage floor. I ended up having to gently bend the baggage floor out of the way in order to be able to place the squeezer over the rivet. The ones on the ends were the hardest because of the angle of the squeezer, but I was able to get them done with a little help from N.

The baggage ribs were then prepared and the ones in the middle were dimpled to match the baggage floor. The ribs were then clecoed in place. Riveting will have to wait for another day.

Time: 2.5 hrs.

Skin attach flanges

Aft bulkhead riveted to center section

Skin Stiffeners

Skin stiffeners

Dimple baggage floor

Clecoing baggage ribs

Rivets ready for pulling baggage floor

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Center section bulkhead started

Started putting together the fuselage starting with the center section bulkhead. Started off by countersinking and placing a few nutplates and a retainer block. The fun then began with match drilling 73+ holes into the center section assembly. Per plans I clecoed the bottom skin to get the alignment of the center section aft bulkhead and then clamps were placed to hold parts together. It took over an hour to then get all the holes drilled. A few of the holes were countersunk as per plans. The skin attach flanges and stiffeners were then cut apart and deburred.

Time: 2.5 hrs.