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About to Begin; A Few Questions

T

Torch76

Member
The RV-8 parts are sitting in my workshop, inventoried, waiting to be assembled. Before I begin, a few basic questions I'm still looking for answers to.
-Aluminum shavings: I have a few slightly modified EAA 1000 workbenches, with plywood tops. In working on some side aluminum projects as practice, I quickly found aluminum shavings management to be a big deal, so as to not scratch the pieces I'm working on. What do most people do? Carpet on top of the bench, consistently sweep the shavings to the ground as you go along, or something else?
-Reaming: I attended the Sheetmetal Basics class, and little was mentioned of reaming. However, I have them from my Cleaveland tool kit. How/when do I use it? Can it be used to updrill (upream?) the match drilled holes in an RV-8? I understand that reaming is desirable over drilling due to creating a more cylindrical hole, so should I ream whenever possible?

Torch
 
Carpet works well as a workbench cover. I wouldn't obsess too much over minor scratches, particularly if you plan to prime the interior, or paint the exterior.

As for reaming, no need to ream rivet holes. I did ream a few specific bolt holes on my RV-10 as called out in the plans. However, there's literally thousands of flying RV-s where the builders reamed only a few holes or even no holes whatsoever. I did match drill/final drill and debur every hole.

Sometimes perfection is the enemy of good enough.
 
A ShopVac is the answer to your shavings problem. Be careful of carpet if shavings are your concern because they latch onto the fibers in a carpet and won't vacuum out.

But small scratches aren't like to be an issue. Even if you decide to polish your plane, scratches from shavings will come out lickity split.

You always have the option of keeping the blue plastic on and using a soldering iron to take off the plastic around the rivet line.

In my very first SportAir workshop, Ken Scott gave us a great tip. By a couple of big pieces of pressboard and use that on top of your workbench top. You can drill into it, it's easy to keep clean, and when it gets all messed up, just replace it.It's a workbench saver
 
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My table tops are that white melamine-surfaced particle board that the big boxes sells for cabinets. Chips don't stick and things wipe or vacuum very easily. Highly recommend that kind of top.

The vacuum is probably the most-used tool in the shop. Since the shop is attached to the house, I didn't want to track aluminum chips in. So I vacuum frequently.

Another tip is to make the table bottoms high enough for a robot vacuum to easily go under them. Then get one of those vacuum and let it clean your shop floor. Saves a lot of time.

Dave
 
I used 3/4 MDF on top a plywood top work bench. flat...then a padded moving blanket on that. then remove or fold in half to work on a wood top again. made a shop vac manifold the length of the shop with 5 plug in stations along the PVC manafold
 
I used a roll of brown butcher paper to lay a sheet over the work bench.
Every few days, I'd just crumple up and throw away with all the little aluminum bits.
Tom H
 
I use carpet only for riveting, very hard to get the aluminum out of the carpet. I have 3/4 foam material that is used for shipping at my work that I put on my table for all drilling and cutting, it is easy to clean off.
 
Decent carpet tiles - Heuga or similar with a tight weave.

Here is the trick - use a 6" piece of 1/4" ply as the brush. It drags the little boogers out of the weave like a treat.

We are currently building a pair of 12's so have built the standard 3' x 12' bench and covered with tiles.

My word - the best bench I have ever built off of.

Don't sweat the small scratches - that is what hi build primer is for :eek:

Oh, no...... I mentioned the P word :D
 
Reamers

I am a newbie and just finishing up the practice kits. They were a great help to me in learning tools and perfecting technique. I tried both reamers and drills for match drilling and the reamers produce a better hole in my opinion; in my case, they replace the drill bit when match drilling. If there is no matched hole, i found i just use a drill and move on. What i found is thAt the more precision on the holes, deburring and dimpling the easier it is to get good consistent rivets. So for me i found spending a little extra time in prep makes all the difference in quality rivets. My worse rivets are the ones i did after drill out my first attempt. JMHO
 
I'm not a big fan of a carpeted work surface. It hides the shavings, but worse than that it hides loose rivets. Those can definitely scratch your work piece enough to notice. The bench that I have carpeted is my DRDT-2 support frame, something that skins get dragged across a lot. I don't have the tidiest of workspaces, but a hand broom and dustpan have been my best defence against those scratches.
 
Regular old plywood that I vacuum pretty regularly when work is in process. I also stopped by a local flooring store and they gave me a dozen or so carpet sample squares free for stuff they no longer carried. I used the squares when laying tools on parts of the aircraft while working on it.
If your intention is to paint, don't even worry about minor scratches. One of the very first steps the painter will do is sand the entire surface. You might take a little more care if your intention is to polish but don't fret too much about it.

Reamin v drilling.
I am only reaming certain holes.
For example, I under drilled the holes that attach the tail surfaces to the fuselage and then reamed to final size. For the matching hole skin to under structure etc. I have just been drilling.
 
I completely disagree with the advice to not ream holes that were originally made with a punch. If you were to look at the punched hole with a microscope, you would see scratches and tear marks made by the punch. These are where cracks will form in a radial pattern travelling away from the hole. Once they start, well you will wish you had reamed them. Dimpling these non-reamed holes can initiate the crack right away and lurk forever threatening to grow.

Also, reaming matches (line bores) the holes of the materials being joined together so the rivets go in the hole without binding or tipping over making it easier to rivet them nicely. Punched holes are intentionally undersized awaiting to be match drilled to final size.

It may be tedious (it's not really), but just like painting, great results are dependant on the quality of the prep work. Compared to all else you gotta do, reaming is very quick once it becomes second nature and you stopping trying to decide whether you should or shouldn't. Just do it. ;)
Bevan
 
Benches and reaming

Standard EAA benches. I wipe the surface with a rag to knock the shavings off. I don't worry much about small holes. Once every 6 months or so, I spead drywall spakling over the surface, dry then hit it with a random orbital.

Every hole is reamed to final size. Far less to debur.
 
Reaming results in a superior hole, often requiring less deburring than if it had been drilled. I've been to a few aircraft factories (Raytheon, etc.) and the big boys ream every hole including rivet holes. If the tool kit included #40 and #30 reamers, I would use them. I wish I had known about reamers for rivet holes when I was building.

The goal is to drill the hole to 97-98% of the reamer diameter prior to reaming. Here's a chart for fractional size reamers:

http://www.rockrivertool.com/documents/pre-ream-drill-size-chart.pdf

Some more info:

http://blog.supertoolinc.com/2012/04/06/pre-ream-hole-size/

A drill size chart:

http://www.csgnetwork.com/drillsizeconvert.html

So a #40 reamer would require a drill size of something slightly larger than a 3/32" to a #41 drill size. I don't recall the size of the pre-punched holes, but I wouldn't fret over it too much. A #40 reamers works just fine on them. It's not so critical at these small sizes since you're not removing that much material.

If you don't have a complete set of fractional and numbered (wire size) drills, I would get it. Even the larger letter sized drills come in handy on occasion.
 
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--THREAD BUMP--

(My current position on priming: I'm complying with the Van's builders manual, which states "All aluminum bar, angle, and tubes used in the RVs, especially the main spar bars, must be primed or anodized to assure corrosion resistance." I'm using self-etching primer for these pieces, but otherwise am not going whole hog into priming.)

Two more questions:
1. I was told that if a scratch can be caught by your fingernail, you need to clean it up with some Scotchbrite, which will of course go through the alclad. Since I've now removed the corrosion protection, should I just shoot it with some self-etching primer? Or do people just leave it bare?

2. The painted parts provided in the kit (thinking specifically of HS-411-BPP and the HS-413PP hinge brackets) all have a notch/gouge in them on the inner part of the cutout, seemingly a byproduct of the manufacturing process. Would this be considered exposed raw material that should be primed?

Thanks everyone, just trying to do the right thing from the get-go!
 
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I use standard EAA tables with a 4 inch lip all around the top for clamps. Love it.

I vacuume frequently as in, after a days worth of work. Like most have already said, you'll be scratching (sanding) the surfaces for paint anyway.

I ream all matched holes. Drill the rest. I too got the cleaveland tool kit (great customer service!).

Primer: everything so far has gotten AKZO that I have touched.

Newbie here as well finishing up the tail cone.
 
Questions

Torch76 said:
--THREAD BUMP--

(My current position on priming: I'm complying with the Van's builders manual, which states "All aluminum bar, angle, and tubes used in the RVs, especially the main spar bars, must be primed or anodized to assure corrosion resistance." I'm using self-etching primer for these pieces, but otherwise am not going whole hog into priming.)

Two more questions:
1. I was told that if a scratch can be caught by your fingernail, you need to clean it up with some Scotchbrite, which will of course go through the alclad. Since I've now removed the corrosion protection, should I just shoot it with some self-etching primer? Or do people just leave it bare?

2. The painted parts provided in the kit (thinking specifically of HS-411-BPP and the HS-413PP hinge brackets) all have a notch/gouge in them on the inner part of the cutout, seemingly a byproduct of the manufacturing process. Would this be considered exposed raw material that should be primed?

Thanks everyone, just trying to do the right thing from the get-go!
Click to expand...

1.Assuming the scratches are exterior, dab some primer on the scuffed area to protect it till paint. If you plan to polish, ooops. Maybe a polish expert will chime in. Interior scratches are likely getting primed.
2. Steel parts are powder coated. If you can see steel, dab some matching paint on the area. Flyboys sells a rattle can matching the Vans color.
 
If you sand down the area only until your fingernails don't "catch," then you can still polish the area and minimize -- and eventually eliminate -- the scratch. Over a number of polishing "updates", the scratch will disappear.

I'm not metal expert other than being "one" with the skins as a result of my polishing, but it seems to me it take a lot to destroy the alcad.
 
Torch76 said:
The RV-8 parts are sitting in my workshop, inventoried, waiting to be assembled. Before I begin, a few basic questions I'm still looking for answers to.
-Aluminum shavings: I have a few slightly modified EAA 1000 workbenches, with plywood tops. In working on some side aluminum projects as practice, I quickly found aluminum shavings management to be a big deal, so as to not scratch the pieces I'm working on. What do most people do? Carpet on top of the bench, consistently sweep the shavings to the ground as you go along, or something else?
-Reaming: I attended the Sheetmetal Basics class, and little was mentioned of reaming. However, I have them from my Cleaveland tool kit. How/when do I use it? Can it be used to updrill (upream?) the match drilled holes in an RV-8? I understand that reaming is desirable over drilling due to creating a more cylindrical hole, so should I ream whenever possible?

Torch
Click to expand...

It is difficult to keep work table top clean and shavings do scratch sometimes.

I bought a roll of construction paper from Home Depot, the stuff contractors use on floor in high traffic areas during build. I cover work bench with it until it becomes soiled or torn and replace it when necessary.

It does provide a very clean surface when first applied.
 
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