Assembling the right elevator for riveting

Finished riveting the skeleton tonight and put it all together ready to rivet on the skin.

Riveting the right elevator skeleton

Began to rivet the right elevator skeleton tonight.

Primed the right elevator

Over the last 2 nights, primed the skeleton for the right elevator.

Over the last 2 nights, primed the skeleton for the right elevator.

Etched and Alodined the Right Elevator skeleton

After a few days hiatus to sort out some work issues, back into the garage.
Etched and Alodined the skeleton of the right elevator.

Drilling, deburring and dimpling the Right Elevator

Good progress tonight, drilled all the holes to final size, deburred all edges anddimpled everything.
I also did the #12 ( big ) dimples and countersinking for the lead counterweight.

Right elevator understructure

Assembled the right elevator understructure tonight, including drilling the holes through the lead counterweight, that is heavy stuff for a drill.

It went together quite quickly really, it looks more complete than it is, it will have to come apart again for plenty of work before any riveting takes place.

Elevator stiffeners all riveted

Both left and right, and the plate for the trim as well.

Back riveting the right elevator

I was making good progress too, until I riveted the wrong stiffener,
and only discovered it when I got to the last rivet.

I drilled out the full line of rivets, it wasn't too difficult in the
end, but enough for tonight.

Back riveting the elevator stiffeners

Just one rivet tonight, I came back quite late from our EAA Chapter
(315) meeting this evening. I got a look at Claudio Tottino's excellent RV-8 for a few minutes and his in-progress RV-12, I will definitely be going back to get some more guidance from him.

Primed the elevator stiffeners

In 2 steps today, ready for back-riveting to the skin next.

Etched and alodined

The elevator stiffeners this afternoon.

Finished dimpling the elevator

Tonight, listening to Thomas Cahill's Mysteries of the middle ages

Left elevator dimpled

Pictured the cut out for mounting the trim cabling / actuator.

Dimpling the left elevator skin

Dimpled half the left elevator skin tonight, it's fairly tedious.

Elevator drilling

Drilled the #40 holes in both elevators & stiffeners.

Rudder Complete

Attached the clevis pins and locknuts to the rudder tonight - the rudder is now done.
Also finished trimming the last few remaining elevator stiffeners.

All rudder rivets complete

Tonight, I final sized the holes in the bent rudder leading edge, deburred and fitted the AD-41-ABS blind rivets.
These are the last rivets in the rudder, all that remains are the hinges.

Rudder leading edge bending

The bend for the rudder leading edge, and cleco'd together...

Rudder skin riveting complete and bending the rudder leading edge

Busy night tonight, I figured out a way to rivet the skins rivets in the tight spaces on the aft edge of the skin, using a back-rivet plate, and a wood chisel to transfer the action of the rivet gun ( last picture ), so i am pleased with finishing all of the rivets in the rudder skin tonight.
Also began bending the leading edge of the rudder using the taped steel pipe method as outlined in the manual, I will probably enlist some help to get this completed tomorrow night.

More rudder skin riveting

Using the hand squeezer tonight to avoid noise. Trying to figure out some creative ways to rivet the skin near the trailing edge which is particularly tight.

Closing the rudder

Began to rivet closed the rudder tonight.
Before commencing I placed a dap of rtv sealant at the tips of the stiffeners where they come together at the trailing edge.

Rudder progress

Good progress on more elevator stiffeners first today, then back to the rudder.
The new bucking bars arrived so I went back to the rudder horn brace riveting.
It was quite difficult, but using the smallest bucking bar, which only weighs a half pound, I was able to drive the AN470 rivets in the R-710 rudder horn brace. The light bucking bar and the tight space makes it quite difficult.
Once that was done I went back to the top end of the rudder to dimple, countersink and attach the counterweight, looks ok, although more threads are protruding than I would expect ( as you can see in the photo) but the bolt matches the part number called out in the plans.

Elevator stiffeners

Trimmed more elevator stiffeners tonight, looks like I'll need to order some more from vans, not sure why this time.

Elevator

Started on the elevator tonight, first step, trim the stiffeners.
So far, so good, trimmed seven stuffeners for the right elevator.

Dimpling the rudder skin (more)

Dimpled the holes on the edge of the rudder skin, now that i am sure that they need it.
The holes on the leading edge I have not dimpled, as it looks like when I bend that into a curve and blind rivet, those rivets don't require dimpling.

Was going to rivet r-710 onto the skeleton, but I need more lp4-3 rivets for that, also need to see if there is a bucking bar suitably shaped so I can use solid shank rivets.

Riveting the rudder skeleton

Riveted most of the rudder skeleton, except for the R-710 part, which needed a last touch of primer.
These are all AN470 rivets of varying lengths, and included the first few nutplates on the plane.

Rudder bending & corrected the rudder brace

Busy night tonight.
I received the replacement R-710 rudder brace, trimmed it, drilled it, cleaned, alodined and primed it.
As you can see from the pictures ( after alodining, but before priming ), the edge distance for the drilled holes is much better now.
I also built the bending brake for the rudder trailing edge and bent it.
Then pushed some rivets in R-713 and R-703, the first rivets in the rudder skeleton.

Riveted all of the stiffeners to the rudder skin

Back Riveting the stiffeners to the Rudder Skin

Tonight I began to back-rivet the stiffeners onto the rudder skin, back-riveting is easier than i thought, I wasn't able to locate the rivet size on the drawing, so i went with AN426-AD3-3.5, which seems to be the right size.

Rudder primed and built the back-riveting plate

On Saturday I flipped over the rudder stiffeners and all of the other rudder internals and primed.
Once it was dry, I then proceeded to build the recessed back riveting plate setup.
Not possessing a router, i went scouring Lowes for some 5/16 board to match the thickness of the back riveting plate, but to no avail.
Although i did find some 1/2 inch plywood and some 3/16 peg board, which conveniently leaves 5/16 for the backing board.
Cut out the holes I needed tonight, and it is all ready to start back-riveting.

Priming

Tonight I spent some time sealing off the airflow between the garage and the rest of the house using plastic sheeting.
The last time I was priming the odor went right through the house, and lasted all day, definitely want to avoid that.
Then went to apply some primer...
The primer i am using is from spray cans of Zinc Oxide from Aircraft Spruce, and it's plenty frustrating, the temperature is cooler now than when i was priming the vertical stabilizer and the can clogs up so much that it is unusable. I need to find a better way....
.
.
.
Ok, I went out to try one more time after reading various tips about how to clean the nozzle, but not much changed.
Then I tried a can of the self-etching primer 'dupli-color' brand which i had picked up at an automotive store, man, what a difference, the spray nozzle is different, the ball in the can also seems a bit different, and the result is an easy, smooth application, I'll do a bit more research, but it looks like i've found a winner with this.

Prepping and Alodining

Spent tonight cleaning all of the stiffeners, spars, ribs, bits and pieces of the rudder using metal prep and then alodined them all, ready for a coat of primer.
Also, decided to order another R-710 Rudder Horn Brace as the edge distance ( distance between the rivet holes and the edge of the material ) is too small. It should really be 2 rivet diameters from the center of the hole to the edge of the material ( 3/16 of an inch in this case ).

Dimpled, deburred and edge finished the rudder

Spent tonight dimpling, deburring and edge finishing the remaining rudder components. I had a real job of dimpling the narrow ends of the ribs, but eventually got an acceptable result.

I've been following closely the discussions on the RV10 and Aero Electrics and the RV list at matronics I added a link to the web site to sign up to the lists on the right here ---->

Lots of very informative discussion on ground connections in the RV 10 list, although I am not building an RV 10 it looks like a lot of other people are, because that list is definitely the busiest of the RV related lists.

And there is a wildfire raging in the RVlist about aerobatics in unapproved aircraft, self taught aerobatics as well as discussions on how to bail out of various RVs.

Dimpled rudder stiffeners

Dimpled the rudder skin

Planning ahead

Spent tonight building a spreadsheet with everything that needs to be in this plane.
This is to get an idea of the cost, which is obviously fairly scary.
But also determining the choices I'll need to make for the electrical components and any items I might need to factor in during the earlier parts of construction, such as wiring runs.
Right now my plan is to have a dual electrical system, and avoid any vacuum driven instruments, and not install a vacuum pump at all.
As for panel layout, I am currently looking at a variation on the 'standard six-pack'.

The standard six pack is how instruments are typically laid out in production aircraft and is how most instrument rated pilots learn to fly on the gauges.
It has six primary flight instruments in 2 rows, going from top left to right, we would have:

• Air speed Indicator ( aka the 'ASI', not powered )
• Artificial horizon - typically vacuum powered.
• Altimeter ( not powered )

Then on the 2nd row, we have from left to right:

• Turn Coordinator - typically electrically driven, this is used to determine 'standard rate' turns for Instrument ( IFR ) flying and also shows 'the ball' which shows if the aircraft is flying straight or 'skidding' or 'slipping'.
• Directional Gyro (DG) - This shows direction, like a compass, but stabilized with a gyroscope since a normal compass has lots of idiosyncracies ( spelling? ) when actually changing direction or under accelleration forces, this is typically vacuum powered.
• And finally on the lower right, the vertical speed indicator which shows the rate of climb or descent ( feet per minute here in the US ), not a powered instrument.

In my preferred layout

• The artificial horizon is replaced by an Electronic Flight Information System (EFIS), which may also include engine monitoring capability, the one i am currently investigating is the Advanced Flight Systems AF-3400.
  This instrument will, on it's own, give me everything all of the other instruments listed above give, plus more, and as such will be placed top center of my instrument panel.
• The DG is replaced with a combined HSI/DG.
  A HSI, is a Horizontal Situation Indicator, it shows gyro stabilized direction plus the needles for the navigation radios VORs, Localizers and Glideslopes, and GPS courses.
  

Outside of the standard six pack panel layout, on the right hand side will be the navigation radios & GPS unit, currently looking at a Garmin GNS430W and a Garmin SL-30 NAV/Com, and a Garmin GTX-330 Mode S transponder, with traffic and upgradability to ADS-B.
Also investigating 2-axis auto pilot.

This full setup will give me plenty of redundancy both in terms of flight instruments and navigation aids, while still fitting into the limited space afforded by the Tandem ( as opposed to side-by-side ) seating in the RV-8.

Powerplant wise, I am looking at a 180 HP Lycoming IO-360 (Fuel Injected), with Unison electronic ignition, coupled to an MTV15 2-blade composite hydraulic variable pitch prop.
I prefer 2 blades over 3 for efficiency cross country, Composite in case I have a prop strike as it is less likely to cause major engine damage in that situation, and hydraulic variable pitch for efficiency and aerobatic capability, also planning for inverted oil and fuel.

Clearly, all of this is costing many $, so compromises are to come i am sure, but now i have a good idea of what i am looking for.

Last of the rudder stiffeners

The last 2 rudder stiffeners arrived today. So I wasted little time in trimming them and getting them attached to the rudder skin.
Then I drilled the rudder stiffener to skin attach holes out to their full #40 size, disassembled and began to dimple the skin using the C-Frame.

Drilling rudder skeleton

Final size drilled the holes in the rudder skeleton and match drilled
the rudder bottom, including the fabricated strips.