RV-6 canopy brace

Greetings,
I am trying to bring back to life an old second hand '96 version 6A quick build kit with a tip up canopy. I am having trouble visualizing the assembly of the back of the channel brace F-632A and F-632B to the F-606 bulkhead. I called Van's and thought I understood the drawings but I am still not sure. There is an .032 shim and it looks like rivets going all the way through from the skin to the channel. Van's said I could go with all new RV7 parts if I wanted and it would be easier, but I have already broke the bank buying new parts to fix old boo-boos and make repairs and most of the these parts are unscathed. Surely someone somewhere has taken a picture of that area that would be instantly illuminating. Can someone point me in the right direction?
Thanks in advance for the help.
Dave A.
RV-6A QR (quickbuild rebuild)

Do these help?
Jim Sharkey

Oops! Sorry that was the wrong joint

Here are pictures of the top brace joint. This was covered in Van's Service Bulletin SB05-1-1.

I had riveted everything in place, including the triangular reinforcing plate before I attached the top skin. The design requires that the skin be firmly attached to the channel brace and it's attachment angle at this point but I only realized this after I had already riveted the skin in place. I ended up shimming the gap between the skin and the attach angle and installing 4 of 1/8" mushroon head rivets through the whole stack-up. Flat heads would have been nicer but it was too awkward to make dimpled countersinks with the skin in place and I was worried that machined countesinks through the thin skin would be weak.

Dave, I recently struggled with this area on my RV6. Here are a couple pictures I took of completed ones to get an idea of how it should look. From looking at various ones on display at the recent RV Rendezvous in SoCal a few weeks ago it became much clearer.
Hope these help. I'm not so sure the SB mentioned is needed for the 6, you should be able to do it per the original plans.

this 1st one is from a -6
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/9687/rv6cabinframekr5.jpg

I believe this one was a -7
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/2465/rvrendezvous3ck1.jpg

I can take some pictures of mine if you want to see how it is turning out, drop me an email.

Rv-6 canopy brace

Guys,
Thanks for posting the great pics. It makes all the difference. My kit was a quickbuild so there are some protruding rivets that the factory did that I will have to change but now I know what I have to do.
I sure appreciate the help.
Dave A.
RV-6A

I'd like to revive this thread since I'm working on my canopy brace as we speak. Hopefully some of you remember what techniques you used when building the brace "back in the day".

The construction manual references the "angle" of the roll bar but I can not find an angle call out. I'm guessing it's about 100 deg. (10 past verticle) but I'm not sure. I see where it shows 2 7/8" past verticle but that's pretty tough to measure it seems. I'm ordering a new F-632 chanel brace as we speak.

When building the 631 roll bar I paid close attention to the directions about measuring between the longerons and building the roll bar 3/8" narrower than the longeron measurement. In my case, I measured where the front of the roll bar would attach. The longerons measured 42 5/8 and I built the roll bar right at 42 1/4. It seems now that might be to close. As I'm building the mounting brackets it appears that it might be to wide...maybe a 32nd or so. The pictures in this thread were great and showed a shim being used. This must have been something this builder (Sharkey) chose to do and built his roll bar narrower to make it work. Is this a correct assumption?

Can someone tell me where the plans call out the positioning of the rollbar? It looks like it's in line with the front of the F-605 but I don't see anthing that spells that out.

One last thing, what techniques/tools did you use to cut the angle of the roll bar where it mounts via the brackets? How did you drill the brackets to the F-657? The only way I can see to do it is to build the roll bar, mount the brackets then take off the front half of the roll bar in order to drill the holes.

Am I making this thing more difficult than it needs to be?

My biggest concern right now is the excess width of the roll bar. Either I'm going to have to sand down the bracket to narrow it down or rebuild the roll bar. I don't want to compromise the bracket strength by making the bracket thinner but rebuilding the roll bar is not on my list of fun things to do either.

Any ideas?

You are right I ended up shimming because my roll bar was a bid too narrow. I also have a slight gap between the "Lexan" and the roll bar at this spot.

I'd have no problem feathering the rear edge of the angle bracket by 1/32" to blend with the side of the fuselage. It will end up neater than my assembly with shims and I doubt that it will compromise the ultimate strength.

I also started with the rear brace channel fitted exactly square to the plane of the roll bar. In the end I had to tip it down at the back to less than 90 deg to be able to align correctly with the attach point on the baggage bulkhead.

I guess that every plane is different and there is a reason that us Brits call some one who builds any type of structure like this a "fitter".

Perhaps the pre - drilled kits are different. I believe Boeing call it DA - or determinate assembly!

Good Luck

Jim Sharkey

jsharkey said:

You are right I ended up shimming because my roll bar was a bid too narrow. I also have a slight gap between the "Lexan" and the roll bar at this spot.

Perhaps the pre - drilled kits are different. I believe Boeing call it DA - or determinate assembly!

Click to expand...

Heck, I thought you built yours that way on purpose, it looks like a "feature".

I wouldn't know about the pre-drilled kits, mine was started in '97 so you can see I'm on the long term path.

Great pictures by the way, it helped immensely.

jsharkey said:

Do these help?
Jim Sharkey

Click to expand...

These pictures are quite old and have been a big help, but am I not reading my plans correctly? Is the inside bracket suppose to be on the inside of the canopy frame and not the outside? Was there any problems installing the brackets this way?