Well,
Here are a few more photos of the center section going together. You have all seen a thousand of them but this one is mine. Have to say it is taking longer than I anticipated...and I anticipated a long time...oh well
Onward Christian soldier!

CTR Sec riveted
 

This afternoon I finished riveting the center section. I had pretty good luck for the most part. The difficult rivets were...difficult. Having the correct tools helped immeasurably.
Now to flip it and get the skin on.

Nice work, Kent! Looking good. I enjoyed the fuselage kit more than any of the others. :)

Kent has a bigger challenge then a slow build kit. His project requires un-building then re- building. Using another builders holes. I think he is on the right path.

Build on, Kent. The journey is worth it.

Thanks for the atta'boy! I am staying on task and have time between shows to get a good chunk done.
Blain the strategic planning does take a bit more time in this bad boy, but so far so good. I have managed to keep three skins so far, the aft bottom and sides.
I really can't wait to get this CTR Sec. installed...not sure how to hold it all together yet, but I will figure it out!

Got a few more shots of the CTR section as I riveted it together







Little bit of a smilie on that top rivet...

I ran into a bunch of RV'ers at the EAA #105 breakfast at 7S3 FBO today! Great to meet other builders and fliers!
Ran into Bruce Swayze again, Ed Lynn, Dennis (RV9 guy, he worked with my brother for several years), and several others.

Great times!

Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'. I am going for the living...living to fly!

Straddling the CTR section to pound the rivets



Finished the bottom skin



Reid my son helped my pound the last rows. It has a bit of a raised or bowed aspect to it just below the row of rivets width wise...hope that isn't a deal breaker



Previously I had final drilled the floors in per the plans

I have this section done! Now for the hard part, dismembering the fuselage...



That was exciting! I like this ship!

Ok, so, I am digging into the next big phase, removal of the old bent CTR section.

I have been working towards this for several months and need to get this fuse with windscreen attached flipped over. I thought about dropping it out the bottom, but I can't get the fuse high enough given the dim's of my small 1966 garage. I still might think about just cutting off the 704 struts that go to the side skins, that would work but I am sure they are sound and usable for someone else. I just wanted to do the whole CTR to make myself feel better about the build.

Lots more rivets to remove but I have a pretty good grip on that now! LOL
I think I could put on a class for each type of rivet and the thickness of base metal it is in!

I have a good feeling this will all line up...if it doesn't I will cross that bridge when I get to it and cross it or build another one or whatever it takes.

A few pic's of the left side bulkhead I replaced today. I primed it and wanted to keep the base piece, it looked good save for one oversize hole which can take a #4 rivet or a screw.

After much investigation and thought...I am building the entirety of the front clip. The windscreen bow looks good will keep that. It is going to be easier than keeping one or two pieces. I have the whole SB fuse kit I bought, so...why not.

The longerons are what I am keeping, and the two aft side skins. Still having fun with this puzzle. :)

Love this thread!

I'm curious, how did this RV get wrecked?

Beautiful work!

Jim

Thank you!

It went down short of the field in Nevada. I bought it from Blain(RV8) who bought it from the owner for the motor. He just got his first flight last week I think.
Before:



After:



I will say that most of the damage must have been done in transporting the aircraft AFTER the forced landing. Once I got it, was hammered dog doo doo, LOL

Thanks again for the post. I did think anyone was interested, but I thought I would just post anyway. :)

Started on the front end yesterday...have to flip it, so will make a rotisserie of sorts
I did vacuum up a lot of debris. Some of that was from previous projects

Welded up a brace to flip this thing...

Bought a motor today from "The Great White North" on Ebay...Hope it works out, I am sure it will.

This is the motor.
IO-360 C1A. Gonna need a new sump...and intakes. Thinking of an aftermarket sump setup

Dirty side up
 

I finally got some help to flip this bad girl over! What an accomplishment! Not difficult to flip, tough to get a couple extra hands to make it easier. All is well and I can make some good headway this week.
I just realized I have had this project right at a year! Working on it in that year maybe only 4 months available. Of that time maybe have done 300-350 hours! I need to step it up!







Haven't seen this side in a while





Quickie pivot point

Love this project!
 

Very interesting thread, thanks for posting. As someone that just replaced my lower firewall , a MUCH simpler repair, I have a small amount of understanding of the process. Drilling rivets is a skill I mastered as well...😉.
One question. How often do you utilize the punching bag in the background of your wonderful pics??
Cheers,

Prior to this project, whenever the stress of situations calls for a little release. Now I can't reach it, too much in the way.
I had a boxing film way-way back that called for some special bag work so I got the speed bag to tune it up at home rather than driving to the gym.

Most of the rivets I drill out are no stress as both surfaces are replaced, but at least 2-300 were keepers on one surface or the other. I have some holes going to #4's ;)

Have just a few more today...having to take extra care as much of this is on the right side skin I am trying to save. We shall see if I pull it off








...and a double macchiato

Not much today...Had a kid home "sick"

Front lower skin excised









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She is free from bondage. Need to lift this section out and do a recon of the whole shebang.

Living legend
 

Hi Kent,

Keep up the good work! Your going to be a VAF walking legend after your done.

Thanks, Mike! I don't know about that...It has to fly and it has to be solid!

It will be!

Man, that's a scary bunch of work you're doing there! Looking good though, keep it up.

So, on the pics with the front floor skin removed; did anyone else picture a Fred Flintstone airplane with their feet sticking out to the ground? No, just me? I'm weird that way...

I hadn't thought of that, but now that you mention it...;)

I have to admit, cleaning up all the holes after careful rivet removal is time-consuming. I have several 3's going up to 4's many times simply from the expansion from the #3 rivet. or egging out while I pull the rivet from the back.
Not many miss drills really. One bad one on the F-623, I think it is, to the side skin, but I can put a .032 Thk "washer" on that one.
Front end turned out to be pretty square, the angles didn't bend as I thought they might.

Rivet pieces pulled
 

So I got the front spar cleaned up with regards to the rivet shop heads removed. Let me tell you, "overly" driven rivets, and there were many, are much more difficult to remove well than a well-driven rivet! My goodness, glad I am replacing these things! Swedish pancake looking they were!





Open cockpit!

In the above picture of the F-704, I just noticed that it is not CSK. I was going through the build procedures to double check that I was ready to install the center section and boom! No dimple or CSK. Not sure how that worked when it was first assembled. It worked, though. :)

My motor arrived





Now it can wait to be rebuilt after I get this plane farther along...

I got my nephew over to help me install the center section. Really went in very well! No real trouble at all after cleaning up the right skin of offending armrest and rear web piece.
Here are a few pictures:

Nothing to see here...

I spent several hours last night trying in vain to get six rivets in.

Aft to the center section along the elevator control rod tunnel.

SO, got two fasteners in, not rivets but screws in place. I had forgotten that a couple of the holes got enlarged on the aft section and the new center section
had nice new holes covering the enlarged holes. Took 40 mins to get one of the attempted rivets out without damaging all the new work.

I don't have a picture, I wish I did, but it was I could do to not beat this whole thing with a sledgehammer...

Today is a new day so I will venture back out to the dark recesses of the garage to work some magic and shake off last evening.

It has been a while since I added photos, so I thought I would update a few. Work has been going on but not a lot to photo document. In this project many things have to be removed massaged and then new parts installed. Case in point are the gear leg weldments. They were 100%, but I had new ones so out they came and new ones installed. I bit of Nevada top soil came out of them even after diligent work to remove it all!
Not much but a few.

Have the lower longerons done now. Not too bad. Few pictures of them and the bottom skin getting holes for the gear.

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Got the bottom skin fitted and the gear holes cleared the weldments well.

Got the firewall off and have been pretty fortunate. Found one extra hole in a rib, must have been for something...











Pretty busy tomorrow so might not get anything done on the RV, we'll see.

Firewall
 

I managed a few photos of the firewall prep and installation. I had my firewall finished but needed to remove the main brackets from each corner as I am using the original firewalls brackets, they were in excellent shape.



























I had other photos, but they appear to have been lost in the interwebs...

drilling firewall
 

Need to take more pictures, but got busy and forgot to