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Ordered my RV-12 kit

T

tim walter

Well Known Member
:)
Well here I go !
I just faxed the order and as soon as I get a reply from Vans I'll officially be an rv-12 builder !
Thanks already to everyone here who helped me make this decision, the VAF and builder support are one of the main reasons to choose this kit as my first project
Kudos to you all
:)
 
Well welcome aboard, you will not regret your choice I feel. You might would wish you ordered more than just one kit, look at the timeline in by kitlog and you will see it only took me from 3 Feb to 26 feb to finish that Emp kit, and a week of that was spent at Ohkosh!! With lead times what they are, lyou may as well get the next kit on the way, you will have a month or so dead time as it is.
 
Welcome

Tim,
Welcome aboard from another relatively new builder. I just finished my v-stab yesterday. One suggestion if you haven't done it yet. Go take the EAA Van's builders course. From your builders page it looks like your background for metal work is similar to mine. The EAA course was invaluable to my wife and I in terms of introducing riveting principles, how to properly set them, identify different rivets and hardware, dimpling, etc.

Although the vast majority of the kit are pulled rivets. There are still solid rivets and in the empennage kit you will get quickly introduced to those. They aren't hard to learn how to properly squeeze but the class really helped. I also strongly suggest investing in the homebuilthelp.com videos. I have the empennage and wing kit DVD's so far and they are great to see how the plans are actually followed. The directions are great, but the videos take the 2D drawings and show you a 3D real person building it view.

Also I would order the Main Squeeze from Cleveland tools if you haven't gotten one. It is awesome for the solid rivets.

Have fun .. Carl
 
Tim,

Welcome to the first time builders club! I suggest making use of the experience of others by reading some of the really well documented blogs. Mine is pretty complete, but others, such as Marty Santic's, are even better.

John
 
Thanks everyone for the suggestions
I have read all your builders logs, and plenty others !
also have the homebuilders help DVDs
I didn't know about the cleveland squeezers, but I'll wait and see what I get in my toolkit from planetools first
I also have a pneumatic squeezer on order.
 
tim walter said:
I didn't know about the cleveland squeezers, but I'll wait and see what I get in my toolkit from planetools first
I also have a pneumatic squeezer on order.
Click to expand...

My Planetools kit came with the Tatco squeezer. I haven't tried the Cleaveland Mainsqueeze, but the Tatco is very easy to use and works well.
 
tim walter said:
Thanks everyone for the suggestions
I have read all your builders logs, and plenty others !
also have the homebuilders help DVDs
I didn't know about the cleveland squeezers, but I'll wait and see what I get in my toolkit from planetools first
I also have a pneumatic squeezer on order.
Click to expand...

Tim, welcome to building. You will enjoy the fun. I do not have a manual squeezer only a pneumatic and thus far have seen no need for the manual one. My tool kit was from Plane Tools/Isham for a RV9 that I was planing then thankfully realized I would probably be 1o years building. By the way, the folks at PlaneTools are in the process of building an RV12!
 
I have used my pneumatic squeezer predominantly, but found on the itsy bitsy rivets on small nutplates, it becomes a bit clunky to hold accurately and much easier to use a hand squeezer on those.

skydiverlv said:
Tim, welcome to building. You will enjoy the fun. I do not have a manual squeezer only a pneumatic and thus far have seen no need for the manual one. My tool kit was from Plane Tools/Isham for a RV9 that I was planing then thankfully realized I would probably be 1o years building. By the way, the folks at PlaneTools are in the process of building an RV12!
Click to expand...
 
kit arrived

Empennage kit arrived yesterday along with the tool kit yay !
Inventory showed nothing missing or damaged
I'm reading the plans thoroughly and expect to start work on Saturday whoohoo
 
Pretty amazing number 528.. I was 513 only a month ago. 15 kits in a month isn't bad. Maybe Sun N Fun was a good for sales :)
 
primer

I was asked what I had decided to do about primer and thought I would share my response here:

I decided to use rattle can just to keep it simple.
I might try a 2 part epoxy and using an HVLP gun at some point, but I have enough new skills to learn as it is !
After reading the VAF forums, I decided the Napa primer seemed best, I couldn't find any at my local Napa store, but they did have the Duplicolor self etching, so I researched that on VAF and found that it's all basically the same in the end.
So I got 1 scan to try, it seems easy enough to do, covers pretty well, and can handle my poor technique.
After that I ordered a dozen cans bulk online because that was the cheapest option.
I've used 2 cans so far and have done all the internal parts and the internal skins of the VS, Rudder & ASTs
I expect to use a full can on the stabilator and probably 2 (maybe 3) cans on the tailcone, (the skins are where most of the paint goes, small parts really don't take much)
I'll do the wings the same way, but for the fuselage I might try getting an HVLP and a 2 part epoxy, because that part will be more open and visible.
Right now all I'm concerned with is covering any part that will be sealed and never seen again.
 
Looks like another 23 kits in a month. I wonder what the annual numbers will really be? Looks like about 250-300 per year?
 
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