November 9, 2020
Finished up the deburring of the holes, counter sinking spar holes, cleaning the parts, and finally priming them. Cue the riveting, today I seemed to not have my head on straight. Half the rivets had to be drilled out either due to incorrect assembly or crappy rivet setting. Ugh, one of those day. But I did get the rear spar…
November 8, 2020
Well almost, first I had to build a new stand for the wings for the install of the ER fuel tanks. The current stand supports the wings from the ends which obviously won’t work when sliding a tank on the outboard side. A couple hours later I feel good about the stability of what I built. Then the final bit…
November 7, 2020
I started by finishing up fabrication of the two brackets for the Elevator trim. Then on to cleaning and priming all of the parts. Queue the fun, assembling the pitch trim. This went smoothly until testing, the servo hit metal before reaching the internal stop. Need to think a bit about how to correct this, I can’t see any possible…
November 6, 2020
Laying in bed last night what pops into my mind but that I forgot to pull the wire through the wings for my extended range fuel tank pumps. Ugh, that could have been a pain. So guess what I started my day doing… Reading through the instructions and reviewing the excellent builders log by Robert Lussow I decided the tanks…
November 5, 2020
With the tail is good shape, my plan had been to bang out the Vertical Stabilizer but plans changes… Instead I ran the wires through the wings, mounted the Garmin Pitot tube regulator, and wired the Autopilot Roll servo connector. I got the cutouts finished for the rear air vents too. A productive day and now the wings are ready…
November 4, 2020
There is a lot going on at the end of the Tail section. Today was spend getting all the pieces prep’d, fitted together in the correct order, and preparing for riveting. Oh and riveting too. Too focused on riveting to snap any pictures. Shame. Shame. Shame.
November 3, 2020
After riveting the belly it was time to move on to the sides. More clecoing of J-channel and figuring out how everything lines up. Fun to see it coming together and looking like something. And nice that all of the rivets are accessible, unlike the Horizontal Stabilizer.
November 2, 2020
Started clecoing the belly skin to the skeleton frames. Then on to riveting, yes there are an enormous number of rivets in the tail section…
November 1, 2020
Started on the tail section on Halloween. I didn’t take a lot of pictures early on the process so this post represents 10/31 and 11/1. Brackets made, angle aluminum cut. Tons of parts to debur, J-channel to cut and match drill. A bit tedious…
October 30, 2020
Headed to see my parents in the afternoon so it was short day. I was able finish mounting the Rami Nav antenna to the top of Vertical Stabilizer after starting the fabrication of the doubler yesterday. Also on the Wing front – got the pitot mast prep’d and primed. Right wing skin is primed.
October 29, 2020
Just seven final hours to finish the riveting the Horizontal Stabilizer. I was glad to get this done because the small gaps to reach in with a bucking bar led to some awkward positions and a sore back. Multiple breaks for some yoga stretching was required the past couple of days. The right wing skin was cleco’d and match drilling…
October 28, 2020
Wow, I can admit I’m not the fastest riveter. I check every rivet with a gauge and often have to hit it a time or two extra. Today I pounded around 500 rivets. Just 300 more to go on the Horizontal Stabilizer. Also knocked off was riveting the wing gap fairing. Went to start on the wing skins only to…