Riveting the tailcone

It took 3 sessions of priming parts to get all the tailcone pieces done.  Then a TON of dimpling.  The side skins have a curve and getting them dimpled with the DRDT-2 was a puzzle but after some time I got it.  Could have used a helper there but I managed.



During final assembly, there's an error in the plans.  The rivet I show here does not go on the AFT lower skin.  It should be the forward skin.

Page 10-25:

I also wondered why the huge hole for the tiedown ring.  Turns out there's a nut on it you can snug up.  Still seems big to me.

Then starts the LARGE task of riveting on the side and bottom skins.  Its a whopper!  Some folks will say you should put both side skins on at the same time to avoid twist.  I didn't think it was an issue since everything is match-drilled and dimpled, if there's a twist its already in.  And also, when I had all the bottom and side skins done the cone would still twist quite a bit with just a small effort.  Not till the rear deck hardware went on did it get rigid against twisting along the longitudinal axis.












Then you put the aft deck on, a few pieces of heavy angle and bolt it all tight.  If you have all 3 yokes for your squeezer, you can get all of the AN470 rivets in the aft deck except for this one (and corresponding one on the other side) with your squeezer.




For the AFT top skin, I learned a trick from Ed's blog.  Thanks Ed, I owe you a beer.  You rivet on the 3 top J-Channel stiffeners before putting that top skin on the plane.  I did a test run to make sure you can get those stiffeners in the frames with it all assembled.  It takes a little persuasion, but sure enough it works.  Saves you a bunch of uncomfortable riveting from inside the tiny tailcone and I find backriveting on the bench makes the best quality rivets.

I riveted in the little hangers I made so adel clamps can be used to fasten the static lines.  I used the middle stiffener, I see others use the left side one.  If I had to do it again, i'd probably do left also.

Sure enough it works.

Similar?  Yes? No?

Here's a small gotcha.  Its in the plans but easy to miss.  Don't dimple the back corner holes of the AFT top skin.  They become fairing attach holes.  The corresponding side skin and longeron holes aren't dimpled/countersunk.

And done!!  There are two more sections in the paperwork, one for assembling the empenage and another for the fiberglass fairings.  I'm going to defer both of those for various reasons.  Bring the wings!

Rudder Frame

Making progress on the rudder.

These stiffeners have to be cut out using the band saw then assembled.

Then you cleco them to the rudder spar:



Next goes on 1 skin and the trailing edge wedge.  You can see the wedge in here, at the trailing end of the skin with alternating small and big holes.  I had a freakout in that the plans called for that trailing edge to be part number R-1006, but I could not find that in my inventory sheet.  Finally figured out that lower in the diagram it gives you the real part number VA-140.  Normally the lower part of the spar would have a rib too, thats the one I'm still waiting on Vans for.

First screw up

Match drilled the rudder horn to the lower rib, but the clecos must not have cinched down all the way before I drilled.  Now there's a gap on one side.  Left like this, the rudder will be deflected a couple degrees just on the bottom.  So I've emailed Van's, guessing a need a new R-1004A/B.  Crap.



**UPDATE**
Vans got back to me and said that I could either add a doubler on the other side to "sandwich" the part with elongated holes, or just buy a new one.  I need some Proseal anyway, so I spent the $9.25 for the new R-1004 rib.

I might have a half hour in prep time into it, oh well.  If this is the worst of my screw ups, I'll be a happy camper.

Finished Vertical Stab

Vertical Stabilizer skins went on pretty well I think.  Got pretty familiar with the bucking bar, and made some good use of the special bar from Cleveland.  You have to uncleco a corner of the skin and reach way up in there to get the rivets in the middle of the skins.

The first skin rivets:

You can see they sit nice and flush with the skin.  The whole point is to get a flat surface that doesn't disturb the airflow at 200mph.  Smooth = Fast.

Inside the stab.  You can see some marks from the long bucking bar in there.  Lesson learned - tape the damn bar.

I had an OH CRAP moment when I saw that one rivet wasn't filled in when I flipped the VS over after just having closed up one side.  Good thing I found it when I did though, was able to still get my arm in.

She's all done!  First part down in 37.2 hours of work.  Many more to go!

First rivets

I finished riveting the Vertical Stab spars and ribs together last night, and got the skin on for the last time.  Had some trouble with the rear spar rivets at first because I wasn't holding the squeezer perfectly straight, so got to drill out my first couple.

Its starting to look like a real airplane part!

This is with the skin cleco'd on for the last time.  You can see I left the blue plastic on for protection of the exterior of the skins except for a half inch or so on either side of the rivet holes.  Its pretty easy to do with a soldiering iron.  You "score" it with the hot iron then it pulls off pretty easily.  Some people score it along a straight edge so the cuts are perfect.  I'm not that anal retentive.

Once these things are all cleco'd together, they remind me of hellraiser.  Yes?  No?

Vertical Stab spars and ribs

Here's the first gotcha of the plans.  The nose ribs stick out too far at the front edges, so you need to sand them down in order to not make outward dents in the skin.  I knew this ahead of time by looking at other blogs, and went after them with 120 grit sand paper.  I didn't do it enough though.  My skins got dented slightly, but after disassembly the dents shrunk somewhat.  So then I used the fluting pliers to shrink them some more.  Hopefully that works, haven't reassembled yet.

Once you get all the parts edge-deburred, you assemble them for the first time.  Here's the guts of the vertical stab:

Now that the spars and ribs are assembled, you put the skin on and match-drill.  The parts all have this blue vinyl stuff that protects them during shipping.  You pull that off.  On the exterior surfaces I cut it just around the rivet holes to leave some protection from scratching.  Some say this is overkill because it all gets scratched up as part of paint preparation anyway, but I still do it.

Vertical Stabilizer start

They start you out by cutting stiffeners for the VS rear spar.  TONS of drilling, deburring.  I'm quickly getting used to that.

Here the rear spar is a little more assembled with the rudder attachment plates (6 white pieces) on.  Stuck here until I get the missing piece from Van's.  Used the waiting time to debur the front spar and ribs.  About 4 hours of work just edge deburring those pieces.  Maybe I'm being too finicky?