[William Slaughter]

That's my feeling tonight about the workmanship I'd seen so far on my quickbuild kit. Up to now, everything I'd looked at had been just beautiful. Just finished the wings and brought the fuselage into the shop, and it looked great, but....
I took out the rear baggage compartment pieces and got a very rude surprise! The F-862 Rear Baggage Bulkhead was hard to unscrew. When I finally got it out, I found that the center screw hole was almost a full hole diameter out of line with the others and the part warped from being forced into place. Then I saw that all three of the lower screw holes had been drilled wrong, plugged with what appear to be double flush rivets, and redrilled, wrong again. The nutplates on the F-834A and the F-834B L & R were installed by countersinking the rivet holes - in 0.025 sheet! Several of the rivets were already pulled through the sheet entirely and hanging loose, while others are just loose in the holes. It's clear that I'm going to have to replace all of the baggage compartment pieces, and even if I can get Van's to replace them under warranty, I've still got the issue of the F-818 ribs and F-888 longerons already being "match" drilled to the existing funky parts. Now, just to add insult to injury, my digital media card reader has died, so I can't email the photos of this carnage to Van's. The excitement of finishing the wings and "starting" on the fuselage has turned to bitter disappointment.
Obviously, I'll get through this, but right now I feel about as low as a snake's belly.
Ok. Vent/Rant off.

 

[Kyle Boatright]

It doesn't fix the other problems, but with cheater rivets (which are entirely appropriate for installing nutplates), the smaller head means that you can countersink 0.025...

 

[godspeed]

disapointing

I feel for you, mine had a few things, but moving forward I have done far worse than the quality of when opening the qb box, once the floor is riveted
in place you won't think about it much after that.. if its an A model and
your putting steps don't forget like I did and have to drill all those out again
once the carpet is down you won't see it again anyway.. fix it and move
on..


Danny..

 

[captainron]

QB Blues

It is odd, how they assemble the QB Fuselage. I am building the -7, but it is assembled the way you describe yours. On the seat pans, the nutplate holes are countersunk, then the pans and the nutplates are permantly riveted to the two middle floor ribs. The rest of it is riveted every few holes with pop rivets. You really can't remove these pieces unless you want to drill out the nutplate rivets.
The two baggage floors were pop-riveted every few holes, so these could be removed, if you wanted to go to the trouble. I decided to just leave them in place. Where the nutplates get riveted to the floors and ribs, I just dimpled the floors and the ribs together and riveted the nutplates on. So the nutplates sit a little off the skin on the dimples, who cares?

 

[Ironflight]

Look at the Positives....

Obviously William, you managed to get the fuse safely from storage to your house - that's a big plus!

Now go get a PicoRita, sleep on it, go work on the floors, and with the quality of work I've seen, you'll have a nice neat solution to the baggage compartment before you really have to worry about it!

Paul

 

[rv72004]

One of my quickbuilt flaps was warped like a bannana.[1/4" out at the trailing edge] Still is.
Yes it is irritating but what can you do . Ive kinda learned to live with it.

 

[jlfernan]

You don't have to live with it! My right flap was twisted, not allowing the bolt holes to line up on the attach brackets. Van's engineers felt it was fine. I didn't. I spent a lot of money on a QB and don't feel I should compromise. A second call to Vans and six days later, FedEx delivered a new flap. This fit perfectly. Vans seem to stand behind their product. Call them and you too could probably work something out.

 

[chaskuss]

snipped It's clear that I'm going to have to replace all of the baggage compartment pieces, and even if I can get Van's to replace them under warranty, I've still got the issue of the F-818 ribs and F-888 longerons already being "match" drilled to the existing funky parts. snippedObviously, I'll get through this, but right now I feel about as low as a snake's belly.
Ok. Vent/Rant off.

William,
At least you're not feeling as low as whale $hit! I would suggest repairing the F-818 rib flanges by installing 3/4"X3/4" .025" aluminum angle under the upper flanges of the ribs. Use Avex rivets to attach these angles to the rib web, if there isn't enough room to buck standard rivets. Trim the excess 1/8" overhang from below the damaged rib flanges. You can now properly attach all the hardware. This is called a scab flange. I can supply photos of some I've had to make. I had a number of HS and VS ribs which were not dimensionally correct. It was easier to fix them, than to wait and get new ones. (Which may have been just as bad) Let me know if you want photos.
Charlie Kuss

 

[William Slaughter]

Good idea Charlie, but I'm hoping that the holes in the new parts will match up with those in the F-818 and F-888's close enough for pop rivets. There's no way I'm going to use the existing baggage compartment pieces - I just hope Van's will make good on them. I'm trying to download the camera so I can send them the pictures when I talk to them. I'll post a link here when I can. And you can bet I'll be dimpling for my platenuts!

 

[William Slaughter]

Update - feeling much better now!

When I got home today, I found the following email waiting for me:

?We noticed your post on Van's Airforce regarding your QB fuselage.
Just letting you know that Van's will work with you in any way we can
to remedy the issues with your QB. We can supply any parts you need
at no charge and will provide any technical assistance you need.
We apologize for the 'slip' in quality and hope it hasn't put too
big a damper on your project.?



Regards,
Scott Risan
General Manager
Van's Aircraft, Inc.

Now that's what I call customer service - making good on the problem before I could even call it in.