Tailcone- 1 hr 21 mins (Tailcone 25:38, Empennage 201:10, Total 222:06) Rivet count: 0 (Total 3,686) The name of the game today was to drill. Every future rivet location that is common between the outer skins and the frames or bulkheads was matched up today. The bottom skin too... Pretty simple work today. However, I made three significant observations tonight: 1) For every hole that was match-drilled (a lot of them), there are at least 4 surfaces that will need to be deburred. So that's three hours of deburring that will take place in the future that I'm really not looking forward to. 2) Now that I'm done with the side skins, the next stage of building involves adding the top skins to the assembly!! This means more drilling and deburring, yes. However, the aesthetic feedback of seeing a project slowly coming together is what I'm really looking forward to. 3) I'm low on 3/32" clecos. The tailcone looks like Pinhead, but I'm going to need more clecos for the top skins. This means I'll have to spend some time rearranging clecos to use less while maintaining structural strength. I'm at one cleco every third rivet, so looks I'll be going to 1 per 4. I don't mind, it's just an observation of wasted time. -M
Tailcone- 3 hrs 16 mins (Tailcone 24:17, Empennage 199:49, Total 220:45) Rivet count: 0 (Total 3,686) Continued work today by attaching the stiffeners that were fabricated yesterday and match drilling them in place. Then manufactured a spacer out of stock aluminum and taped it in place. I didn't have carpet tape per the instructions, but a few well placed pieces of masking tape will get the job done just as easily. Two more pieces were deburred on the edges and added in place. This is where the horizontal stabilizer will eventually attach to the tailcone. Lastly, we added the two longerons that were made and bent months ago. I needed to use the Dremel to file away a bit of the frames that weren't quite big enough to accommodate the longeron edge. After, the majority of today's work took place. We clamped the longerons in place to the skins, and then drilled through them using a #40 drill. Lots of aluminum everywhere and two major structural pieces are now attached and part of the tailcone assembly! -M
Tailcone- 2 hrs 27 mins (Tailcone 21:01, Empennage 196:33, Total 217:29) Rivet count: 0 (Total 3,686) Yeah! Back to building!! It's been five months since I've touched anything in the garage. Pilot training has been consuming my life with 12 hour days and our firstborn made her way into this world six weeks ago. No complaints, though, everything that has happened in the last 5 months has been worth prioritizing over. Today we started by cutting some pieces to make stiffeners and braces for the back end of the tailcone. Funny enough, I made two braces when I only needed one, so I'll be needing to order a 7 inch piece of angle iron (aluminum) from Van's to make whatever part that extra was going to be originally. At least I screwed up a $3.35 part instead of a $100 skin. I'll take it as beginner's bad luck for getting back in the swing of things. After, we cleco'd the last frame to the front of the tailcone, and then attached a few supporting parts. Lastly we made more stiffeners for the front of tailcone that will eventually support the plane's battery. After countersinking, and match drilling the platenut holes, it was time to call it a day. G has some beers and working while drinking is never a good idea. I'll continue tomorrow. -M
Elevators- 2 hrs 12 mins (Elevators 71:07, Empennage 194:06, Total 215:02) Rivet count: 58 (Total 3,686) The Elevators are finally finished!!! I started them 11 months ago.... Talk about a long time for progress. Today's work was the exact thing I did last week, but mirror imaged for the right elevator. Not much to report here other than it's finally done! We'll find a place in the house to store these parts, and then continue work on the tailkit that was started months ago. -M
Elevators- 2 hrs 28 mins (Elevators 68:55, Empennage 191:54, Total 212:50) Rivet count: 58 (Total 3,628) Wow, I really can't believe it's been nearly two months since I've done work on this. School has been kicking my butt. Christmas was fun, but I spent most of it traveling to see family. I was hoping to get the elevators done before the new year. Now, the past two weeks have just been brutal, and the cold weather makes it even harder to go out and work on things. Enough excuses. I finally got my safety wire and pliers ordered and was ready to finish the elevators. The first part of this video was from 8 days ago on the 11th. I forgot to upload it and the timelapse merged both days into one video. I've been following the last two pages of the elevator manual. Cut the piano hinge to size and then drilled each half to the elevator and trim tab. The bending of the piano hinge was surprisingly easy, but still took quite some time. Finally, a little bit of safety wire to secure the bent hinge in place and the left elevator is complete. About two more hours and the right elevator will be done too! -M
Elevators- 2 hrs 15 mins (Elevators 66:27, Empennage 189:26, Total 210:22) Rivet count: 66 (Total 3,570) Well, these elevators are just dragging on for an eternity. Not only did I not get to finish them over the holiday weekend, but I'll be pushing 70 hours of labor by the time I'm done. Quickly, we finished up the blind riveting from yesterday. Then my pregnant wife helped with cutting the lead weights. She's wearing a respirator just in case, and the garage smelled of acetone, so double whammy. It turns out that cutting the lead indoors was a bad idea. Little pieces went flying everywhere! After two pieces, I noticed and we stopped. Here, the tape breaks off for a half hour while I took the bandsaw outdoors and finished the pieces there. The removal of the backstrip from two of the weights was a royal pain in the rump. Why doesn't Van just send us the pieces already cast to size? The bandsaw heats up the lead pieces significantly. The best method for me was to trim off the strip a sliver at a time. When the weight became too hot to handle, I soaked it in a jar of water and worked the second weight. I swapped back and forth and got everything accomplished. The driveway was a mess after. I tried to vacuum as best I could, but Mother Nature is taking the hit on this one for lead poisoning. I want to keep my wife and dog as far away from the lead dust as possible. A chisel worked great for "deburring" the edges of the weight as we come back to video.
Next, we wrapped the weights with electrical tape. I've seen others do this, and Im not really sure the reasoning. The weights do look much better, and I would assume they are now better protected from bending, chipping, and contaminating other places. With the weights wrapped, it was time to break out the torque wrench and bolt the weights on. Amazingly, it took about 10 minutes per elevator to do so. 25 inch pounds seems like a really low torque setting for these bolts, but that's what the literature calls for. To finish the night, we screwed the cover plates to the bottom skins. These will eventually come off again for further assembly of trim cables, etc. But they are secure in place now. The elevators just need the piano hinge to attach the trim tabs and we are complete! -M postscript- Ironically, a year ago on Thanksgiving weekend, I was bending the leading edge of the rudder and working with the lead counterweights. I found that interesting... We'll have to see what next Thanksgiving weekend has in store for us....
Elevators- 2 hrs 32 mins (Elevators 64:12, Empennage 187:11, Total 208:07) Rivet count: 66 (Total 3,570) This is actually multiple days worth of work, but due to the Thanksgiving weekend, I wasn't able to get a solid chunk of time to work on the elevators. I started out by bending the edge of the top skin so that it will sit flush after riveting the two skins together. Then we used the duct tape and PVC pipe method to roll the leading edges of the elevator and cleco'd them together. After clecoing, there were still a few places where the edge wasn't flush. This simply required undoing the clecos and bending the edge more evenly. It's not perfect, but I'm not too concerned. It will eventually get filled in and smoothed prior to painting in the future. Thankfully, that's all riveted together and complete. My hands are torn up from bending cold metal. Then we blind riveted the cover plate pieces together. Last, I marked off the lead counterweights for the trimming that will take place tomorrow. The video cuts out before I finished riveting the second elevator. I actually left a few rivets for tomorrow as well. -M
