New RV-10 for the wife!!

[Slowpoke]

Hi All,

We just received our RV-10 emp/cone kit this week. We inventoried yesterday and we are setting up the shop to get started. The wife (Dana) is getting nervous. This will be our first build and we are going to be looking any helpful information you folks are willing to offer up.

I have a question that I could not find looking around the site, how do you strip the protective coating on just the rivet lines? Is there an easy way?

Thanks all,

Adam

[Weasel]

Welcome to vans air force.

[daviid]

Originally Posted by Slowpoke

Hi All,

We just received our RV-10 emp/cone kit this week. We inventoried yesterday and we are setting up the shop to get started. The wife (Dana) is getting nervous. This will be our first build and we are going to be looking any helpful information you folks are willing to offer up.

I have a question that I could not find looking around the site, how do you strip the protective coating on just the rivet lines? Is there an easy way?

Thanks all,

Adam

congratulations. I also just got mine recently and you have come to the right place for information.

The "standard" method is to take a soldering iron and a straight edge. once the tip is warmed up it melts the plastic and it will peel right back

[Slowpoke]

Thanks Everybody, we are very excited.

We are now trying to make up our mind if we want to prime or not. From what I read it seems to be very up in the air which way to go, personal preference. We live in the desert but we do fly to the ocean and spend a week or so at a time.

[rocketman1988]

The soldering iron tip WILL scratch the skins if you put pressure on it.

It is also recommended to round the tip of the iron so that there are no sharp edges.

I used a soldering gun with two loops of 14 gauge copper wire spaced about an inch apart?made both "cuts" at the same time...

[daviid]

Originally Posted by Slowpoke

Thanks Everybody, we are very excited.

We are now trying to make up our mind if we want to prime or not. From what I read it seems to be very up in the air which way to go, personal preference. We live in the desert but we do fly to the ocean and spend a week or so at a time.

i am priming but not going the fully overboard with it

clean with dawn dishsoap
acid etch
spray with SEM EZCoat.

i'm sure the SEM EZCoat will cost more than the primer by the quart/gallon. but not having the hassle of cleaning my spray gun for 10 minutes of spraying is worth it.

[N427EF]

Adam,
Congratulation on getting started on a great airplane.
If your wife is excited about the build she'll be in love with the airplane once the 10 is finished and flying.
After having built and flown a RV-8 for many years and not getting my wife overly excited about flying in the back seat, she loves to fly in the RV-10.

As to your building question:
There is no reason whatsoever to not pull that annoying blue plastic off just as soon as you need the part or sooner. The longer you leave it on the more of a pain it becomes to pull it off.
Whether you prime or not has no bearing on pulling the plastic off. Once you are ready for a paint job the entire airplane will need to be "scratched up"
with scotch brite before applying primer.

In a nut shell I would encourage you to be efficient in your build and not get bogged down on unnecessary steps in the construction process.
Stick to the plans and you can get that airplane done before too long.

[AirbusPilot]

Great!!!

I will be buying a RV-10 on March, this is going to be my 3rd RV and this is going to be for my wife Macarena who is a pilot too!!!

She is going to love the RV-10, but I don't expect her to be involve in the building beside to decide color and avionics

[rocketman1988]

"clean with dawn dishsoap
acid etch
spray with SEM EZCoat."

If you are using a Self Etching Primer, why go to the trouble to acid etch?

[ka6dan]

Tell the wife not to worry. My wife has been the head riveter for all the rivets I couldn't do the riveting I could do single handed. I'm the bucker. She truly enjoyed her job. I, on the other hand, didn't enjoy crawling back into the back of the fuselage.

Enjoy