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Tommy's -8

tweiss

Active Member
With the excitement of all the assembling, I have not made any effort to start and regularly update the progress of my build on this site.
I have thoroughly enjoyed following along with so many of you folks and your building experiences I thought it was time to pay it forward if you will with my build.
A quick story of about me getting started. Last fall through my friends and kids, we gave my wife the opportunity to be the airport hero and get me an -8 tail kit for my birthday. Well when my birthday was done she didn't come through with my thoughtful gift. But she didn't exactly say no either. She just felt she wasn't capable of making all the decisions that come with ordering such a thing.
So...... with all my best intentions, last February I thought it would be a great idea to get her an -8 tail kit for her birthday.

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And the rest is history.

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I've since lived that very exciting day of opening the boxes.

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Inventorying the contents.

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And clecoing parts together and taking them back apart, over and over again. Great fun!

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Now anchoring off of VAF, I found so much helpful stuff here in regards to building the tail kit that I won't go into too much detail on every step along my tail build. I studied so many builders logs and posts prior to begining my kit that I knew where to pause and take a breath when I got to the problem areas. Plus I found a few areas challanging to me that seemed to be no big deal to others, so as I bring my tail build up to speed, I'll try to comment on those areas mostly and not drag out "another" tail build.

Well I'm glad I got this started tonight and look forward to making small updates daily (hopeful) until I get this caught up to my current build progress.

Good night.
Tom
 
Cograts!

Looking good Tom - welcome to the "8" club!! Keep pounding those rivets and you will be done before you know it. Don't wait too long before ordering the wing kit - longer lead time to think about with the next kits :D
 
And so it begins! Keep up on the builders log, it helps with motivation and that is the key. Find a good RV8 near you to look in on, buy him lunch once in a while and some av gas if he will take it. You're going to have fun!
 
RV8 Tail kit

So how was her gift received? Was she excited about it? Now try to get her out to the garage to help you. Congratulations of the begining of a great adventure.
 
Thanks for the idea Tommy. I plan on using your strategy and will buy my wife a new bass boat for her birthday.

Pat
 
Thanks guys, I've been looking over your shoulders here as you build. Izzy, you're a couple steps ahead of me and hopefully I'll close the gap this winter. My plan is to build one sub kit per winter. I did order my wing kit (sb) before the price increase last spring. It's been out at the airport in my hangar ever since June. I don't impress myself much (ever really) but I have got to say that I have really put on an awsome display of self restraint this summer by not opening those crates! The tail had to be complete first as well as all the honey do's, and family summer time. I did bring the wing spar box home last week and opened it. It appears the inventory list is in the other box, so all the spar box contents are being left together until I get the rest home and do the appropriate inventory.
I've found it fun here to recognize all the generations of builders. You know, the guy who's just opening his tail kit today, vs. the guy who's hanging his engine or installing his avionics, to the guy who's got 1,000 hrs. plus flight time on his RV. There seems to be quite a few people within just a few sub kits of each other right now, and that makes it fun/comforting to hit off each other as we all battle our way through this.
So.... back to my quest to update my build frequently, I tackled the spar and angle reinforcement bars (tapering and breaking) with a file. It took me a while to feel confindent that I guessed right on what the plan was saying when they wanted me to "break the edges" of the bars. I never heard that term before.

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Having a project has been a great excuse to build up my tool collection. This smart tool was useful a few times on the tail kit.

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Then came the point in the project that so many had suffered with (cutting and drilling the HS-404 nose ribs). This can be searched and read until your blind. I had no idea how to do it better, but I approached the task with caution. The problem is "edge distance" on the rib flange that rivets to the HS-spar. I read the plans, measured and lightly marked the call out specs. Then I just through the nose rib up against the spar and eye ball'd the distance between the HS-810 and HS-814 and marked it free hand.

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I wish I would have marked the call out line better so it could be seen in the pic, but I gained a pretty good chunk of flange by eye balling it. I then cut above and below my eye ball'd lines so I could file back to them as needed and threw the nose rib back up to the spar to evaluate where I was.

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With just a little bit of filing the rib flange eased into just the right size (top to bottom) to squeeze in between the HS-810/814 angles.

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The next blood pressure raising event was to drill the 4 holes per side through the spar, 810/814 angles, front and main ribs.

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Of the 4 holes, the inner 2 now gave me lots of rib flange meat to drill through without being too concerned with edge distance, but the outer holes (upper and lower) challanged me for edge distance between the main rib flange (drill going through it in the pic above) and the 810/814 angles.
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When it was all said and done I felt it came out OK. All the edge distances were withing specs. All the reading and viewing of pictures prior to tackling this was very helpful, but in the end just having the parts in my hands and fiddling with them was the most comforting tool to believing I could successfully complete the task.

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This may be the only pic I have of this section riveted together.
So.... update goal met for this day. More to follow.
Have a great day.
Tom
 
I used the same ploy on my wifes birthday ten years ago as pertaining to a certain semi-automatic weapon. I hope your surprise was better received than mine!! Good luck, stay close to this site and closer still to a nearby friend with an RV. Enjoy the process.
 
Looking good

It all looks very good Tom.

I also try to look into other builders work to avoid mistakes (though I still do some at times :eek:).

Keep pounding, you will get more confidence as time goes.

And feel free to ask questions when in doubt, even if they seem stupid to you, they are not!!!

Cheers
 
Congratulations

Hey Tom......hope u enjoy your adventure.....you picked a great model by getting the -8:D

YOL BOLSON!!!
 
So many questions as to how my wife recieved the present here, so I'll start off by saying, not too bad. We were friends in high school and she can still remember me drawing RV's on my folders, so it's not a surprise to her. I had been telling her for the last couple years that in my mid 40's if I don't get started soon, I'll never do this.
Any way, my HS build was going fine, perfectly in fact until I strayed just a little bit from the plan call outs. I was match drilling the HS main ribs to the front and rear HS spars and thought I could take a little short cut.
The plan is quite specific that you cleco the under structure all together, match drill one hole, take it apart, clean out the chips from drilling, cleco it back together and repeat. While I was match drilling one hole through the HS-708 main rib and spar, I thought I could just hold the two together and match drill a second hole to cut down on the take it apart, clean it, put it back together and drill again thing. Well as soon as the drill bit hit the rib flange it twisted it in my hand just enough to elongate the hole in the rib:eek:

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I jumped back in disbelief, screamed, I thought, I can put a doubler patch on it, I can call Van's and order a new rib, I'm not cut out for this building stuff I'll just quit....... and all these thoughts in less than a second plus explicatives verified by the gong of my phone with my 13 y/o daughters text of "I heard that!" Her bedroom is next to the garage. Did I mention this was probably 5:00 am?
Well I ordered a new one and to take advantage of the shipping I ordered some hardware I needed as well.
Later that day I was explaining my rough morning to my hangar neighbor (RV-4 owner). He told me he was going to fly up to Portland to visit a friend and would pick it up for me. I called Van's and they put my order on the counter for him to will call it. End of that story is I had the new rib installed by the end of that same day.

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So that's me not following the directions and making things tough on myself. Luckily it ended up only costing me $10 for the part, and free same day shipping via a friend and his RV-4.

The rest of the HS went pretty straight forward. I battled a bad brand new rivet gun that beat on my HS and VS skin before I figured out that the gun was the problem, but I got that figured out and moved on.

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Well while I have the time tonight I'll go through my pics and see what else I can post on.
Stand-by
Tom
 
With the HS behind me and moving onto the VS, I discovered that I'm pretty descent at assembling the understructure parts, but kinda crude on the skins, which needs improvement quick due to the fact that that's what I get to stare at forever when this is finnished.

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From here is where I deviate from Van's RV-8 a bit.

I'm a sucker for the looks of almost anything fastback, whether it's a Mustang (Ford) or Mustang (P-51) Cessna 150...... Fastbacks/Razorbacks are just sexy in my opinion.
Way back when I saw my first RV (thinking Jr. High School age) it was probably a -3, but I know it was the 2 seat -4 that caught my attention a couple years later and made me think I would like something like that someday. Then the -6 came out and back and forth in my head, side by side, or tandom? Until I saw my first Harmon Rocket and fell in Lust. Then the refined F-1 Rocket, Oh My!
Well, one year when I was renewing the insurance on our C-170, I asked the broker what insurance would cost me (1,000 hr. tailwheel pilot) on a Rocket?:eek::(
Well that dream died until 5 ish years ago when I saw a Showplanes RV-8 and later met Butch and Brian who developed the kit that turns an -8 into a mini Rocket.
I like it, because it's still an RV, simple with tons of support, and doesn't cost much more to insure that our C-170. The dream is still alive!

Ok, got off track there a second. So to make room for the increased angle of the turtle deck I needed to cut a slice off the bottom leading edge of the VS.

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Freelancing was scary at first, but not too bad in the end. Got my cut cleaned up, had to pinch the front of the bottom nose rib with the fluting plyers to make it a little narrower so I could push it up the leading edge a couple inches. Then back drill a new row of holes to rivet the rib to the skin.

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And that pretty much was the end of building the two stabilizers. I deviated from the plans in two areas. The obvious is the cut for the fastback mod, and the second was countersinking for the skin rivets vs. dimpling. I was going for a very smooth finish and got it for about 90% of the holes, but that defective rivet gun just blew a close to perfect finish for me.

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I will paint this plane someday, but I'm building it as if I were going to polish it and leave it that way forever just to force me to be careful. Paint will hide the imperfections caused by the rivet gun beat down. Who know's, maybe I'll build a new set of stabilizers someday, or re-skin these. I don't think my standards are changing, but the reality of my expectations might be just a little. One thing is for sure, I've enjoyed the building experience so far.

Tom
 
With the stabilizers behind me I was glad to be onto something different. The control surfaces were much more enjoyable to me. I liked the back riveting and the lighter weight skin.
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The one thing I would do differenty (and I will on the flaps/ailerons) is taper down the trailing edge of the stiffeners farther. I felt that I already took them down significantly farther than the plans call for, but later learned that a number of builders take them down to almost zero verticle at the trailing tips.
The issue I found was while bending the trailing edge of the skin is that I'm up against the stiffeners and have no more room to go if further adjustment/bending is needed.
I used a trailing edge bending method that I learned from someone on the site here utilizing angle iron and C-clamps.
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I padded the iron with a few layers of masking tape and screwed the bottom one to the bench top. In the pic above you can see the picture frame nails in the leading edge rivet holes to keep the skin from trying to creep forward while pinching the trailing edge. That worked well.
Once secured I carefully placed the top angle iron on the skin, got the C-clamps in place, and began tightening them down a little at a time until I had it where I wanted it. I commandeered help from my daughter and her friend cause I was running out of hands to do this.
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And the safety dowel was in place to keep me from over bending, which would only result in the skin stiffeners poking into the skin due to the above mentioned lack of tapering. I did check for the skin being deformed from the stiffeners but cannot see or feel anything.
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Another task I wanted to accomplish was getting all solid rivets in the rudder/tailwheel steering horn assembly. If I remember correctly, it was this longeron yoke that made it possible for the near impossible reaches.
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I really liked how this part came out, and it was fun to work with as well.
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Those are the only issues and possible tips I can really remember and pass on about the rudder assembly. Seemed pretty straight forward to me. I'm gunna call the rudder done.
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Fun times in the garage last night. I started construction on my wing kit, so I really feel the need to abreviate this tail build log so I can report real time build events as they happen.
So after the rudder I moved right into the elevators, which is kinda more of the same.
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And after all of the same repetative aluminum work, it was interesting to work with the heavy lead counter weights.
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Emory cloth made quick work of shaping the leading edge of the counter weight. A piece of masking tape allowed me to see when the cloth was scratching tape instead of the skin.
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Here's one of those days when I was enjoying myself building something, thinking I was doing a good job until I got to a smooth hole (no dimple poking up me).:( So I drilled out some rivets, dimpled the missed hole and began to move forward again.
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Scrolling through my pics I noticed I don't have any of the trim tab part of the build. I can jump to the end of that story and tell you I have some scrap aluminum in my scrap pile from my first attempt. Luckily after practicing on folding the tabs on the trim tab, I was able to successfully bend the tabs on the elevator and not have to buy a new skin for that. So for $18 I bought a new trim tab and was successful the second time around. On the first tab bending attempt I failed miserably, ended up cutting the tabs off and making riblets. It was OK but not really acceptable. After all the practice on the first attempt I figured I was good to go on a second try and it worked.
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Almost done.
 
Wrapping up the tail kit was a great feeling. I had planned out for a couple hours one morning to set up and drill the elevator horns and be done (less fiberglass tips).
Then when I had completed drilling the hole and placed the bolt through all the pieces, I realized I had not adjusted the elevators properly to the HS.
This was an issue for me that caused me to reach out to this community for solutions.

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=100130

The response was amazing with lots of great ideas. When it's time to assemble the airplane I think I will go with the socket head bolt.
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Until then I will just keep my eye out for the proper hardware to make that happen (bolt strength, grip length...).
I didn't want to park the empenage and start another sub kit without getting a handle on the fiberglass work. I didn't necessarly want to finish them, but I wanted to get started enough to be able to estimate how long it will take me to complete them. So I went down to an expert and got a crash course on handling the tips for the tail.
Armed with that information I dove in and immediately was stumped by a problem with the tip flanges that follows.

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=102424

Again great GREAT advise here. People are so nice to take the time to answer questions and see people through their hang ups.
Now I have my tips rough cut in with nice straight flange edges, and I think I will just leave it at this stage for now. This will give me time to study up and talk to people look over their project and see how they finished out this part.
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Well just about caught up to real time now. I'll update soon.
Tom
 
Bringing the goods home.

Last July I received my wing kit. It was delivered out at my hangar for storage until I was ready to begin working on it. Seemed like I was jumping the gun, but I did beat the Van's price increase deadline.
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I put casters under the main box so we could move it out of our way when needed.
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And set the spar box half way up the hangar wall. It can't possibly get in anybody's way up there.
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Last weekend I began sneaking the wing kit home from the hangar.
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Luckily I only live a couple miles from the airport with that load. Once home I opened the box and removed all the packing paper. No need to start inventory, the manifest is in the other box.:(
So I kept all the part together and broke down the spar box. Planned to get the other box home later that week.
 
Last Thursday I got the main wing box home. I can't get that cat to help me do anything. He's out of there!

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I got it all unpacked and inventoried. I special ordered the batwing tips that would normally come with the -7. Anything I can do to put a little style into that hersey bar wing.

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All the parts stored and ready for some building action. I spent the rest of the day mostly studying the plans. As much as I thought the call-outs were lacking on the tail kit, I would sure settle for that format now on the wings. Looks pretty sparse on step by step direction.

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Before I called it a night, I final drilled, counter sunk, and riveted on all the tank attach platenuts to the left spar. Once I figured out what Van was trying to explain (mostly I figured it out from what many of you have posted here), it started to go quite easily.

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And with that I called it a night.
 
Well this is the post I've been waiting for. After all the updating to bring this post up to date since I started this build, I'm finally going real time.
Today I got a good run at starting these wings.

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I made it through all the platenuts. Tank attach, inspection plates underneath the wings, and wing spar root attach point.
Here's a shot of one of the inspection plates screwed on to check my counter sinking.

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This was one of my most perfect build days so far. It was enjoyable, and the product turned out great. Tomorrow I hope to complete the tie down structures, and get organized to start on the rear spars.
Good night.
Tom
 
Hillsboro Builder

I love the progress! I'm in the Portland area building out of HIO, I recently bought a tail kit partially complete out of Colorado. Its great to see a local 8 taking shape!
 
Nevetsw18,
Your in the right place for building RV's. A guy could get lost in them up in your neighborhood. I suspect I'll be up there often when I get this completed. I'm assuming your tail kit is an -8? Hoping you keep a post here as you build yours as well.

I got some quality build time the last two days. Yesterday I tackled the tie down brackets which kinda kicked my butt. I tend to think things aren't going to take as long as they do, but I'm extremely slow at this anyway. In the morning I was here.

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Due to some issues http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=69887 with my learning curve, by lunch time I was only here.

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Well not only from the curve. The family and I took time out and went down town for the Veterans Day Parade. Well worth it! Any chance to thank a Veteran I'm on it.
Later in the day I match drilled the tie down stock to the spar and called it a night.
 
Today was a lot smoother. This morning I began with attaching the plate nuts to the tie down brackets. Then did the whole debur, clean up, prime and assemble routine, which brings the spars to completion for now.

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The plans say to install the aileron bell crank brackets now, but I've seen where I may have to take them off when installing the push tube later on, so I made a note in the call out list right before the "riveting on the skin" section. I was ready to move on!
Next I got out all the rear spar parts and began to de-blue them.

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I took about an hour and deburred all the edges.

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Starting with the left side, I match/final drilled the aileron doublers and root attach doublers.

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I learned something today that Van's does for idiots like myself. The left rear spar went so well that I tore into the right one without taking a breath. After I match drilled the doubler (W-707E) where the aileron and flap come together I realized I had the spar facing the wrong way. I had matched drilled the thing on the forward side of the spar instead of the back side. I looked up at the clock to see that it was 4:00. I had 30 mins. to call Van's and get another one coming. But before I did, I un-clecoed the doubler, flipped the spar over into the correct orientation and placed the "ruined" double in place. To my amazement, all the holes lined up perfectly. It's not like the rivet pattern is a thing of obvious symmetry either.
Well sometimes I guess you just win some. I re-clecoed it on and continued forward.

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Once in a while someone comes out in the garage to try to figure out what keeps me going on this. They just don't get it. But at least I have support. I said grab that camera and take a picture so I can prove to the officials that I built this thing.

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Before dinner tonight I had the rear spars completed (with clecos that is). So it's off to work tomorrow and hopefully I'll be back at it on Thursday.
Good night.
Tom
 
Once in a while someone comes out in the garage to try to figure out what keeps me going on this. They just don't get it. But at least I have support.

Great progress Tom! Isn't this just the thing. I get the same response, no one seems to understand how we can spend every free waking min thinking about and working on the plane? :) It's to the point when I'm not working on the plane I get all cagey and they send me to the garage!
 
Ribs

No "big wow" stuff to report lately. Taking care of around the home stuff in addition to preparing for the annual next week on our 170.
I did however build one of these rib flange straightening devices that I have seen on a couple builders posts here and it is FANTASTIC!
Since I've been too busy to work on the -8 at home, I thought I would take some small pieces (OK, a lot of small pieces) to work yesterday and see what I could get done in between 911 calls last night.
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In about 2 hours of time with just a few minor interruptions, I was able to remove all the labels and sharpie the part # on all the ribs as well as straighten all the flanges. I began to debur the flanges on one rib but my shifties had already gone to bed and it was too loud an operation.
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If you haven't gotten to the rib building stage of your kit yet, I highly recommend taking the time to put one of these together.
Even more, this would have come in handy on the tail kit ribs as well. So far one of the quietest operations to date.
I'm looking forward to getting back on track on the call outs after skipping ahead to the ribs and updating here.
See ya later
Tom
 
Well I'm sure I have found the most tedious slow going part of the build. Deburring the ribs! It's a shame they get buried beneath the skin never to be seen again after all the time invested so far. I know I could get the 1" 3M wheel out and smooth up the edges pretty quick, but I like the finish you get by using a file and sandpaper.
It takes me almost 30 minutes per rib just to do the flange and lightning hole edges. But the finish is oh so nice.:) I haven't even started the leading edge ribs yet, but I need a break from the deburring.
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Today I laid out the left wing ribs in the orientation they will spend the rest of their lives in and stacked the right wing ribs just to confirm I could mirror the left wing by part numbers.
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I also learned while looking here at another builders site, that I happened to miss the match drilling of the rear spar doublers on the upper flange where the skin rivets to it.
It's one of those areas where I need to slow down and recognize I need to change drill bits from the #30 to a #40 and not blow right through and screw it up. I also got the flange holes dimpled above the doubler plates before they get riveted on making the dimpling difficult.
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Tonight I made the wife happy and brought the project into the house for family time. I figured I couldn't make too much of a mess fluting ribs. It worked out well and after the amount of time it took to debur each one, fluting was a breeze, and kind of fun too.
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As a matter of fact it went so fast that after I finished one wing, I went back out to the garage and brought in the ribs for the other. Here's a pic of the right wing fluted, and the left wing on deck.
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Hoping to cleco ribs to spars tomorrow on at least one wing so I can match/finish drill everything and get some stuff prepped for priming.
Good night.
Tom
 
Keep it up....

Wow - Tom, you are on record pace man :D I am enjoying your fast progress - Stay after it, my RV-8 friend, you will be passing me up and leaving me in your dust in the next day or so. :eek:
 
Thanks for the encouragement Jim. My pace may look fast on the computer, but if you look at the posting dates I'm just not getting the dedicated time and consistancy I would expect in the peak of winter. In addition, I believe we ordered our wing kits near the same time. But I only ordered mine then to beat the price increase knowing full well I wouldn't get started until late fall. I checked out your kitlog and was shocked how far along you are! Very motivating!

I did get out to the garage the day after my last post and started clecoing some parts together.

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Once I started grabbing parts off the shelf I think I began free lancing off the blue prints and not following the call outs.

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I started counter sinking holes and trying to do everything I possibly could before I break it all back down for priming.

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Things started to get a little wild with the free hand counter sinking in the places too tight for the CS cage.

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So once I finally realized the aileron hinges don't come into play until later I took them back off and put em back up on the shelf. But not before I broke the edges, deburred, and polished one up. I like this kind of stuff.
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So now I'm ready to prime all the parts needed to rivet the rear spar together. I find myself walking in circles cause I have no handy place to prime. The temp outside (where I primed my entire tail kit) is sub-freezing, plus I have switched primer:eek: for the rest of the build. I will no longer be using the Napa rattle can (even though it did a fantistic job). I'm using the wings as a primer transition in preparation for the fuse where I have a plan (but will get to that next year).
Any way, I think I need to make a temp. spray booth which will put me back a day or two, but will speed me up in the long run.
I called it a night.
 
Last night I clecoed the other wing together and started marking parts with an electric engraver.

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Another thing bugging me the other night was what/how much conduit do I need. I spent yesterday researching that along with temp. spray booth options. I got a great tip on the conduit dilemma from a friend with a lot of successful builds under his belt and am going with pex for the conduit.

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So pretty much I'm stuck until I can shoot primer. If they don't kill me at work tonight, I'll try to dig up some stuff and get a temp spray booth set up tomorrow.

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I'll bet you thought I was going to take that "down the hole pic" didn't you?

Have a great day.

Tom
 
Still no spray booth, but I did make enough head way yesterday to get to the next phase of the wing build.
I got the rear spar and all its doublers scuffed up w/ a scotch bright pad, then moved them to the side of the house for alumiprep and alodine.

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Not the best temperature to work in. :( We don't normally get snow on the valley floor here, but last weekend we got a lot of it and with these temps it has hung around for too long now.
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Got my supplies ready.

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And a most shameful set up for spraying. :eek:
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But at the end (very end) of the day, I had parts that will be ready to assemble on my next day off.

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Hopefully tomorrow.
No more spraying for me until I set up a booth!
Good night.
 
Got a few things done on the wings over the last couple weeks. Back in the middle of the month I was able to get the rear spars and doublers riveted together.
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After moving the wings around on the tables, it struck me that I'll be able to assemble the wings onto the fuse in the garage. At least w/o the engine hanging on it.
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Hadn't even day dreamed that far ahead yet.
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Then before calling it a night, I labelled all the ribs with a vibrating pencil. I gave up on the Van's part #'s, and went with a more simple L-1 through L-14 for the left wing and R #'s for the right.
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After that I spent my time assembling a PVC spray booth. No pictures of that process. I haven't used it yet.
 
Some more progress since Christmas day. I needed some spray racks, so out with the wood working tools to knock a couple out.
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The weather was my motivation the last couple days. I was able to set my parts outside on the driveway and get them primed. Right wing half way done with the left wing waiting in the garage. Shadow stretch
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By dinner time last night I had all main ribs for both wings primed. I'm hoping to have them riveted to the front and rear spars in the next couple days followed by a completed wing jig. After that it looks like things progress quickly for a while.

Good day

Tom
 
A couple days ago I hit what I consider a wing kit bench mark. I got the main ribs riveted to the front and rear spars.
I'm always chicken to get started driving (with the gun) and bucking rivets, however once I get going it usually goes just fine.
Never the less, I started out on the outboard end working in and utilized the lightning holes in the spar use my squeezer.
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When able to squeeze, I prefer the hand squeezer over the pneumatic. It's so easy for me to cause more damage through a mistake with one slip of the trigger finger than the ease of the pneumatic is worth. If I could hand squeeze this entire airplane together, I would be one happy camper. Plus I haven't seen the inside of the gym for months so that would be 2-birds/1-stone.;)
With one rib riveted on, I was on my way. I did the right wing solo with a double offset on the gun. It was OK, but man my back was killing me from leaning over.
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On the left wing I talked my son into spending part of his Christmas vacation running the rivet gun. He did great (better than me) and it was so much nicer to stay on my side of the spar, plus my back was liking this two person method much more as well.
I still can't sit down and relax. Nervous/excited!!!
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When I finished squeezing the rear spar on I noticed for some reason the end rib pulled away from the the spar. I was able to mate all other 13 ribs to the rear spar just fine with the button heads due to pulling on the factory head of the rivet with the squeezer as I squeezed, causing the rib to pull against the rear spar.
When I squeezed the flush headed rivets to the end rib I tried to put the pressure in the opposite direction by pushing on the factory head, but the rivet insisted on spreading the rib and spar apart. You can see a little light between them.
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So I drilled them out and retried it using clamps to keep the gap closed. This worked better, but the tendency was still there for the rivet to swell up in the rib and push it forward.:confused: I haven't seen this problem to this point of the build yet. The clamp tricked helped quite a bit, but its still not how I would like it to be. I did the same on the next wing with the same results.
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End the end however, we got em done. It feels good to be to this bench mark. Now I'm off the Lowe's to get some wing jig supplies.
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Good day,

Tom
 
I did make it to Lowe's and picked up those needed supplies to erect a wing jig. It took me about 5 days in between work and other commitments to get the thing set up.
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Then I spent the last couple days and many hours fumbling with the jig while trying to get the smart level to show me "zero's".
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This morning I was finally set up enough to start attaching the top skins. I set up the inboard skins without the wing walk doublers, then traced around the ribs that support the doublers. These marks allowed me to double check my placement after getting the call out measurements marked.
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By this evening I have the skins cleco'ed on with the smart level showing one spot on the right wing as being the farthest out of square by 1/10th of a degree. This is confirmed by the strings of the plumb bobs being 1/32" off from each other.
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Next step is to match drill all those holes before I let the project sit for a couple weeks. Got some projects coming up that will take me away from the fun. Will be looking forward to getting back to it.
Oh yeah, then I sat some leading edge ribs up on top for fun. Now I really can't wait!

Good night.

Tom
 
Well after ignoring my project for over a month while I dedicated my spare time to installing ei's new engine analyzer in our C-170, I'm finally back at it.

Prior to leaving the wing project however I was able to get all the parts for the outboard leading edges assembled, cleco'ed in place.

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And before I put it aside got the joiner plate set in place ready for gas tank battle.

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I finished off that far leading edge to look like the close one. Then the call out say's to put it all aside and get started on those TANKS!
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Well I put it all aside, but since the tach on the 170 went T/U, and the single point EGT had been "inop" for over a year, it was time to address it.
So now I got this little gadget to play with when we fly.
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My build time this last couple weeks was dedicated to gas tanks.
I haven't been following the Van's plans too much yet. I've been using the popular alternate Z-bracket method that most poster's utilize that Checkoway posted years ago (not Dan's method, I know).

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Sorry about that, I thought those were rotated properly. Oh well, no time for that. I need to get out in the garage and take advantage of my time today.

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This is the last pic I have uploaded. Both wings have the tanks cleco'ed together and mounded up.
I have decided to complete the outboard LE's before I do the tanks. My thought is to practice on the LE's that hold air before I do the LE's that hold gas. I hope to have those outboard LE's done by the end of this week.
Here's hoping for some build time.
Tom

By the way, February marked the one year mark since I started the -8 build.
 
I got a few small chunks of time this week to prepare the outboard leading edges for assembly.
I was dimpling the holes for the stall warning vein so I can plug them with rivets. I'm building for an AOA system, so I won't be using the stall warning vein. While doing this I decided to install the stall warning vein mount in the LE just in case it was ever decided by someone in the future to add the vein.

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Mounted all the nut plates on the stall warning access plate doubler and LE/tank splice plates.

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But today was the best gain of them all. The last day I will ever have to prep ribs with alumiprep and alodine for priming!

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Ready for primer.
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Great day to spray primer in Oregon.
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It's all in the garage curing now. I'll be up at the crack of dawn assembling LE's in the cradle with the hope of having these suckers done before the day ends. I need those cleco's so I can build the tanks. :eek:

Good night.
Tom
 
Got one LE riveted up per day this weekend. Worked right up to bed time last night, but did get both done.

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Gots lots of cleco's to do the tanks now. Need to get busy on them as well as make up my list of additions and deletions to order my fuselage before the end of the month.

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Excited for Pro-Seal !!
Tom
 
Nothing too exciting to report really. Seems like I have 100 hrs. of studying and only 10 hrs. of hands on with this gas tank building.

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I've really enjoyed installing the cap. sending unit plates. As simple as it is, I'll really be relieved when I see it all working someday after everything is all sealed up.

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I made it through all the scary stuff like running the fly cutter. I removed the top of the press to place the belt on the pulley combination that gives slow speed only to find out I've been running it at its slowest speed since I bought it. If I had much more fly cutting to do, I would consider buying different sized pulleys to slow that thing down.

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I got the RV-14 gas caps fit into the tank skins as well.

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But you can see that process here if you like.

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I got a few more things to get done on these before their ready for Proseal. I need to do the vent lines, all fuel line attachments and the inverted fuel details. Still need to study up on fuel injection systems to determine yea or nea on a fuel return line. Also need to do a redo on the T-405 angle attach pieces.
I'm getting close to taking them all apart for final debur and dimpling, then I have no more excuses not to open up the goo and start sealing.
Final note tonight, I did get my fuselage ordered Thursday. Can't wait to be working on that.
Tom
 
Tanks........still

Very tough getting time in the garage lately, but I'm still at it. Been taking care of all the little things that go in the tanks before I open the can of seal.
Safety wired the flop tube with the biggest wire that would fit through the hole.

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Then began to scuff up the mating surfaces.

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Criss Cross Criss Cross..............
My fingers were junk for a few days after this.

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Luckily a friend RV-6 builder had some left over tools and let me use his C-frame dimpler for the #8 screws. My first time ever using one. A little nervous at first, but they all came out perfect.

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Because I went with the -14 gas caps, I had to play around with the rivet lengths for each hole.

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All looking pretty close.

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Then I was just about of things to do, so I organized all the parts for alodining.

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After soaking in alodine, it was time for the MEK wipe down, never to be touched by my greasy hands again until they were sealed in place and cured.

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Bring on the ProSeal!
 
ProSeal

Well I lined up everything I could think of that I would possibly need once I opened the can.

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Then I clecoed all the stiffeners on as well as the drain flange and gas cap flange as per the 1st session of the plans. Then I let it set over night for riveting the next day. Turns out I should have laid the fillet bead right then and there, but I figured I would to that the next day after riveting. The problem was, we had a temperature spike in Oregon that day, and the sealant set up too fast on me. Any way, the next day I back riveted the stiffeners with wet rivets, applied the encapsulations on all the shop heads, and don't see any way these are going to leak. I finished up the session by riveting the drain and cap flanges as well.

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The next session I buttered up the rib (second from the outboard) and fey sealed the tank skin as well similar to Rick Galati's excellent demo tip.

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After having these ribs in and out of the skin dozens of times (seems like dozens) I found with the proseal that it was easier to pin the rib into place with an aft cleco.

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Then go to the nose rivet holes and locate them.

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I had this rib fully clecoed in on both tanks, then called my friend to come over and help me shoot these in. The session went well and we really developed a rhythm before the two ribs were done.

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And then I was out of time. Had to clean up and haven't been back since last Saturday. Well hopefully I'll get some more ribs in before this weekend is over. I am so slow at this. I do not want to have to get back in these tanks for anything once their done.
Got a HS graduation coming up soon. Hope to have these tanks done and tested before then.
Here's to hope'n.
Tom
 
Good job Tom! For me the hardest part of sealing the tanks was getting started. You're now over that hurdle.;)
 
So close!

Thanks Miles.

I was able to get a little time in the garage this weekend and work towards the end of this gas tank "fun".
Butter up, Lets go!

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Half way through squeezing in the end rib rivets my wife calls me in for fathers day breakfast. I've learned to dislike hardening proseal, so I told her I would be in when I finished. She changed it up and hand delivered the goods right to the garage. Nice!

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On the few builder sites I tend to cheat from, I've never seen anyone talk about or post pics of sealing in the aft end of the end ribs where they meet up with the rear baffle.


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So here I am bridging the gap with a tooth pick. Kind of like a spider building a web, you just got to get it to stick to both ends your trying to fill between, then it goes pretty easy.

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Then there it is, ready for the next session when you butter it up for the rear baffle. It just gives you something to build the sealant up against.

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In the pic below (from Sunday night) you can see I have one end rib left to go on each tank. No pictures but yesterday I got one of them done. I now only have one more tank rib to go on the left tank.

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With a little luck on the side of time, I'll have these ribs knocked out tomorrow!:)
 
TANKS!

After months of struggling for shop time, and hours of dealing with proseal, I have two completed tanks. Completed, tested DONE! I never want to do that again. My hats off to those that do this in a couple weeks and solo, and everything else that makes it sound easy. It's just a miserable somewhat messy, and SLOW job.
I never did it solo. Part of the reason for the prolonged job, I was always aligning schedules so I could have a partner to help. My son was a victim most of the time.

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I even got lots of help from the airport crowd. In this picture I have two IA's and an A&P helping out. I purposely held off on this picture until after the leak test. How embarrasing would that have been if we built leakers with this brain trust?

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I used Rick Galati's tips for buttering up parts and cleco'ing, so lots of pop sickle stick work, however I only did one rib at a time. I felt panicky when the proseal would form a skin as it cured so I did short sessions. I had lots of supplies like syringes so I used that kind of stuff for odd jobs like packing wire ends with proseal and forming beads on top of the already fay sealed surfaces.

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This is my peace of mind photo to confirm I took the piece of tape off the hing pin on the inverted flapper before closing up the tank.

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All internal parts were alodined prior to assembly. Here's the rear baffle getting ready before installation.

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Sometimes I don't see the big picture when cutting, deburring, and priming. At some point in the process I noticed these nicely primed z-brackets need to seal against the baffle, so out with the scotchbright disc and clean up the contact points from primer.

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I was just about shaking at this point. I was so excited about being so close to being done with these things.

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And then the big test. Passed the first time! I was so excited that I left each tank on the manometer for two days. I kept coming out into the garage and watch the colored water go up then down, then more down and luckily back up.

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And my most favorite picture to post in the last FOUR MONTHS! Suck it Proseal!

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Yep, it took me 4 months to get these things done. My first log entry on my call out sheet for touching tank parts was in March.

Now I complain a LOT about tank building. It is slow and can be messy and sometimes frustrating. But it's not hard. My biggest distress through the whole project was just the thought of having to cut back into these things if I ended up with leaks. That would have been terrible.
I'm trying to stay on a schedule building this plane. One sub-kit per winter. Maybe I was a bit over confident of my future free time two winters ago. Any way, I'm glad to be back working on nice clean dry airplane parts now. Leaving on a trip tomorrow, so I'll get back to it when I get home.
Tom
 
Yes, I found the tanks to not be difficult, but very exhausting. It just seemed that no matter how prepared I thought I was, I was in PANIC MODE from the time I mixed the proseal til the time I started clean up.
 
BIG PARTS!

Back from our trip (wife=hawaii) and back in the garage. I immediately started prepping parts to get the leading edges and top skins riveted to the main wing structures so I can take this wing jig down.

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I had my buddy come over and we took the solid rivet challenge. My son and I attempted it before our trip, but after one rib I looked under the spar at the manufactured heads of the first five rivets to find five smilies looking back at me. Well yesterday we found that my new double offset rivet set is bad (you can't drive a rivet w/o smashing the head). So I borrowed another one and we knocked it out w/o a smilie. Both LE's in a couple hours. I did have a bag of pull rivets standing by just in case I became another victim of the LE solid rivet saga.
I would say I lucked out, but really I think I buck a nicer rivet when I'm not looking. It's like a night landing (I can't see well enough to screw it up).

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I left the pitot access doubler off just in case I needed to get my arm in there for something (I didn't), so while I had all the tools and rivets out, I riveted it on.

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The top skins are ready to go on the right wing, but before I rivet them on, I want to work over that scarf joint thingy a little bit more.

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So happy to be working with nice clean dry parts. This is enjoyable again!
Tom
 
Free from jigs!

Over the last couple weeks we got the top skins riveted on.

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Right wing is free, and sees its first sun rise.

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Then it was on to the aileron brackets, gap seals, and flap braces.

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Almost done with aileron gap seal.

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And done.

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This stuff really seems to be coming fast now after the long slow paced tanks.
Now it's onto pitot static, conduit, aileron bell cranks and control tubes, bottom skins....
Yes this is fun again!
Tom

By the way, how about those wing racks? Given to me by a friend/local RV-7A builder. He told me "they're yours, or they're going to the dump". $free-fifty-free! My favorite deal.
 
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