Empennage Kit has arrived

I took the forum's advice and took Synergy's metal working / airplane fundaments class and am much more comfortable with my technique than in prior threads..

I received my empennage kit and got it all uncrated yesterday! Very excited to get to work. I'm working in a fairly tight space so may attempt the hanging approach that Jason Ellis did in his early videos, just need to find the best clamps for the job.

As far as the kit in the crate.. a few marks and scuffs on the aluminum sheets. Photos below.. I imagine this is par for the course?


https://imgur.com/a/SFXCpeC

Also, as for inventorying:

Recommended to open each submit and inventory now or wait to inventory as the instructions call for them? Are the subkits just for crate organization or do they go in chronological order for the install itself?

BrettShaffer said:

Also, as for inventorying:

Recommended to open each submit and inventory now or wait to inventory as the instructions call for them? Are the subkits just for crate organization or do they go in chronological order for the install itself?

Click to expand...

You want to inventory everything in case something missing or damaged.

Congratulations on taking the leap and thanks for making me no longer the new(est) guy! I'm a few weeks into my RV-14 kit and I had many of the same minor scuffs as you. They were just on the blue plastic and didn't affect the aluminum at all. That blue stuff is really great at protecting the metal. It's also amazing how much buffs out when you scrub pieces for priming and (I'm assuming) final painting.

Definitely tear apart all of the kits and inventory everything you have down to the individual bags. You can skip counting the rivets unless you have a kid that needs some punishment. I thought I was missing a couple pieces until I dug even further through the kits and finally got everything checked off. Van's does a fantastic job of packaging, but they can miss things. Even if they don't miss something, getting familiar with where everything is stored will really make finding pieces easier. A good organized system seems to be one of the easiest ways to avoid frustration.

As far as what they put into each sub kit, so far I haven't been able to figure out their system. Each section in the plans seems to pull from multiple sub kits which makes access and organization super important. I think it might be pieces that they stamp and build together at the factory. I've been starting with the diagram on the first page of a section, looking up the parts required on the inventory sheet then pulling the parts from the various sub kits that I keep in plastic bins and bags to collect the parts I'm currently working on into a single current-work bin. That works for me but if you're tight on space you might need a different system.

Good luck!

Brett,

Congratulations on starting your RV-10 build!

One thing that I learned from taking the Synergy empennage class was to open every bag, inventory the contents, and then place all the small parts into multi-compartment trays such as these: https://www.harborfreight.com/24-divider-storage-container-94458.html For the RV-10 empennage Synergy used 4 of these as I recall. One tray was for the rivets, another for screws and bolts, one for nuts and washers, and one for other items. They used a Sharpie to mark the part number on the cover over the respective compartment to identify each part. For a few larger parts they left out a divider to make a larger compartment. They did the same thing for the 3.5 rivets due to the large quantity of these.

I found that this was a great way to store and easily find the small parts, and added additional trays as I received the additional kits and inventoried them. Now at the end of my RV-10 build, I think I have 15 trays which hold all the parts, and I have generally ordered additional screws, nuts, washers, bolts, etc. as my project progressed, as I found I needed more as heads were stripped, screws dropped, etc. (Van's provides just enough for their kit, but generally no extras, so ordering a supply of extras from Aircraft Spruce as my bins ran low turned out to be a best practice.)

The bags do not match particular pages or tasks in the drawings, so leaving parts in the bags can result in a lot of wasted time trying to find the right bag. At least that was my experience.

I even purchased a few larger boxes over time such as these for holding larger parts: https://www.harborfreight.com/20-bi...s-storage-case-93928.html?_br_psugg_q=storage And I purchased a larger shelf unit to hold the bigger parts, the bins, fiberglass supplies, etc.

Cheers,

From our 7 onwards, we have done the same.

Grab a beer, put some music on, spill the bags out one by one and decant all the precious cargo into whatever storage system you like.

I use 24 drawer storage cabinets from Despot or similar for nuts, washers, bolts, rivets etc.

Everything goes in logical and ascending order. Nuts - sized, Washers - sized, bolts - sized, rivets - sized and typed 426/470/pull. Don't forget, the plans don't ask for bag XYZ, they ask for an AN426 3-5 or whatever.

Then the sub parts etc go into a couple of these

https://www.zoro.co.uk/shop/storage...ates&cjevent=aa0c2db797bb11ea839102550a18050e

Most stuff can be easily identified by writing on the top of each compartment using a Sharpy. Easily erased with celly when empty.

However......

In each box, top right corner goes the compartment labelled - Weird Sh1t

Why ?

Because it is a mental trigger that when you are searching for something that doesn't recall easily - it will be in the best compartment ever. You will quickly figure it as you take stuff out of the brown bags..... What is that weird... - Aahhh - it goes in top right !

Def inventory now (mine was missing 6 HS nose ribs and a bag of screws). I inventoried all the subkits then re-plastic wrapped them to keep them together. I put the rivets in cheap tupperware containers (labeled) and the small bags in some 1 gallon ziplock bags. The inventory master list will help you locate which bag/subkit the parts you need are in. Also, one benefit of that is the further along in the kit you get the easier it is to find the (fewer) parts you need!

Definitely inventory everything up front. Mine was missing two elevator skins and some of the misc. screws etc. were missing and/or wrong size.

Van's gives a limited grace period for reporting discrepancies and they are excellent about making it right if you report it.

One of the things that sped up my progress was storing the rivets and bolts in a labeled plastic bin organizer that I got at Lowes. As stated earlier, the plans do not mention "bags" but do refer to AN identifiers. Once you become comfortable and familiar with the coding system, it is far more natural to pick from bins than bags.

In addition, I would suggest to order extra of all common rivets types and sizes. In a project this big, you will be surprised on how many rivets don't end up on the airplane. They are dropped (my shop rule: If it end up on the floor, it stays there until cleanup and never gets used), you use them for practice, you use them on scrap to adjust/calibrate tools, you put in a bad rivet and need to replace it, etc. In addition, if a situation arises where you wish to make an adjustment in the rivet to be used, it is easier to go to the correct "bin" and find what you are looking for. Spare rivets are cheap, time: not-so-much).

Enjoy your build. Start of a fantastic journey. Small considerations such as what is being discussed are IMHO important since they have a positive impact on progress and serve to reduce the frustration level.

Congrats on the fun journey ahead. From the pictures, it looks like the scuffs and scratches are just in the blue vinyl. Do any extend deeper? I've had a few scratched parts (both my fault and as shipped) and the scratches buffed out fine.

Scratches

About the scratches, if the scratches are not too deep they will be cover and buffed out during painting. The exterior part of the plane will be slightly sanded before painting then the primer will help fill in small scratches.

Tbarsic said:

About the scratches, if the scratches are not too deep they will be cover and buffed out during painting. The exterior part of the plane will be slightly sanded before painting then the primer will help fill in small scratches.

Click to expand...

This, and you will put your own scratches on things as you build. It's gonna happen even if you try to leave the protective film on. Congrats on the kit, it's a fun learning experience!