Tailcone- 1 hr 38 mins (Tailcone 74:38, Empennage 250:10, Total 271:06) Rivet count: 311 (Total 4,405) The riveting continues! -G came by to help out with riveting the stiffeners to the bottom skin. What a difference having another person helping. I highly recommend it. We did 1.25 times as many rivets in less than half the time. Tonight, I also had a bit of good luck. We started to rivet the side stiffeners from the aft end and immediately noticed the holes weren't quite in line. Had we started from the front, we wouldn't have noticed until after riveting a lot rivets. Turns out I had installed the D an E stiffeners in a swapped configuration. So it took nearly 30 minutes to disassemble half the side skin to swap the stiffeners and cleco everything back up. Smooth sailing from there. I'll finish up the stiffener-to-skin rivets tomorrow before moving on to the frame/bulkhead-to-skin rivets. -M
Tailcone- 2 hrs 20 mins (Tailcone 73:00, Empennage 248:32, Total 269:28) Rivet count: 246 (Total 4,094) A milestone day! At 73 hours and counting, I've now spent more than 3 days and counting working on the tailcone. This also surpassed the 71 hour mark set while working on the elevators. The real milestone was in setting my 4,000th rivet! At an estimated 14-16,000 rivets on the project, that puts me at 1/4 of the way with the structure. That's not including the endless hours that will be spent on things like electrical, engine, interior, fiberglass, etc. (All the things without rivets) At 248-270 hrs, I'm roughly about 10% complete with the project! This is both super exciting and depressing that it has taken me nearly two years to get to this point with all the delays and stoppages due to work. More on that tomorrow hopefully. I'm waiting to hear back from a job-related assignment. The video will show me riveting the the three stiffeners to the right skin. There's still and equal number of rivets on the left skin, and even more for the bottom skin. I have reached a point where I will have to recruit outside help for bucking. In theory, I could back rivet the stiffeners to the bottom skin, but I would imagine Van would have determined the proper building method for a reason, so I'll stick with the bucking bar for now. This one step is on pace to take 7 hours to accomplish. Onwards and upwards! -M
Tailcone- 3 hrs 38 mins (Tailcone 70:40, Empennage 246:12, Total 267:08) Rivet count: 73 (Total 3,848) The first couple of hours we spent riveting together the remaining bulkheads and frames. Easy work, yet still time consuming. After that was done, I took a break for dinner, and was back at it. The back half of tonight's work was one step in the plans, but it consisted of assembling the tailcone back together. All I will say is that I'm happy that's done for the moment. Step two on page 20 begins the riveting of the skins. The rest of this page may take days if not weeks. -M
Tailcone- 2 hrs 19 mins (Tailcone 67:02, Empennage 242:34, Total 263:30) Rivet count: 81 (Total 3,775) The first 44 minutes of this entry is not in the video. I spent a little bit of time yesterday in the garage, but the heat was unbearable, so I stopped early. I assembled the battery case and all of its associated nutplates. We begin riveting the tailcone itself by assembling the individual bulkheads. The 1012 and 1011 assemblies were done today. Pretty easy work, but very time consuming working with the small parts, and using the squeezer to get a nice looking product requires messing around with the settings in order to accomodate each different rivet type and size. We continue tomorrow with the 1010 bulkhead followed by the 1009, 1008, 1007, and 1006 frames. -M
Tailcone- 2 hrs 20 mins (Tailcone 64:43, Empennage 240:15, Total 261:11) Rivet count: 0 (Total 3,694) The priming is complete. Started the day off with a trip to Harbor Freight. Surprise win as I walked in and saw they sold gauges on their own for compressors. Figured I'd take a six dollar gamble that it was compatible instead of buying a $150 compressor and it worked! so the old compressor is back in business... Also, yesterday I spent some time looking into possibly getting a new HVLP gun, and I came across a few videos on youtube with a different way of setting it up than I had. Basically, I'm now shooting less volume but as a result using a narrower stream. Works really well for small parts and flanges. Not so well for skins, but it's still manageable. I was able to give two coats to all the parts not primed and give a touchup coat to the parts already primed, and I used a batch and a half of primer. So previously, I was wasting ALOT of primer as extra mist into the air. The downside is that some of the pieces are a little thick on primer due to one previously applied coat that was a lot thicker, and a really thin touch up coat. Hopefully all the pieces still fit together well. I'll find out when I start riveting and there's no going back at this point. As seen below, the garage is a mess with parts everywhere drying out. On to assembly and riveting!! -M
Tailcone- 1 hr 45 mins (Tailcone 62:23, Empennage 237:55, Total 258:51) Rivet count: 8 (Total 3,694) Step 4 actually took place a couple nights ago when my friend C.W. came over and I was showing him around the shop and how everything flows for the build. We assembled the bellcrank assembly and then I let him squeeze a few rivets in. Nothing major as far as progress, but figured I would document it for the build and to keep track of the 15 minutes or so that we spent.
Bellcrank Assembly
I got home from work today in a less than stellar mood. I was hoping a little progress would help, but I was sadly mistaken. I decided to try my theory of waiting for the sun to start to drop before painting. It worked perfectly for controlling heat, but I failed to consider the mosquito population that is out looking for a meal. I even was bit in the face, and let me tell you, it is a lot more painful than one would imagine. The other bit of bad news is that the outflow pressure gauge on my compressor broke. So I won't be able to tell how softly or how hard I'm driving the rivet gun. A weekend trip to Harbor Freight is in order. I made a big batch of primer tonight, and was able to get all the stiffeners, longerons, the rest of the side skin and one of the top skins. I think I might be able to finish off the priming with just one more batch. I still have the frames/bulkheads, the other side skin, and the other top skin left to go. What I did notice after grabbing the parts when they dried is that some places I didn't get the primer as well as ideal. So I'll say two more small batches, and we are definitely in the clear. -M
Tailcone- 2 hrs 14 mins (Tailcone 60:38, Empennage 236:10, Total 257:06) Rivet count: 0 (Total 3,686) Dimpling is complete! The new dimple die arrived in the mail today. Since I also found out my checkride isn't tomorrow, that meant we had time to get some work in tonight... I started off with all the flanges of the bulkheads and frames, and then finished up the skins . After a dinner break, I was back at the stiffeners with some welcomed help from my wife. I had her hold the stiffeners and move them from the dimpled hole to the undimpled hole while I focused on the actual squeezing of the dimples. It at least felt like it moved along much faster, and a few new blisters might be testament to the fast pace. Needless to say, I thought I was looking at four more hours of dimpling, and it was done in just over two. Now it's just a matter of waiting for an overcast day to get the last of the cleaning and priming accomplished before we get in the full swing of riveting again. -M
