J

JDerrick

Member
Started this morning watching sunrise & sharing a cup of coffee with my wife, aka "bucker." After the second cup of coffee, she suggested we work on the RV. Went to the "hangar," (garage), pressurized the compressor, got all the tools out, laid out the parts for the rudder skins & prepared to shoot the first line of rivets. Here, things started to fall apart. We put first line of rivets in, taped them down, flipped it over to start back-riveting. I exclaimed, "These rivets seem really tall, are you sure you got the right ones?" My beautiful bride double-checked the rivets & affirmed they were the correct length. After cautiously positioning the back-riveting plate, I proceeded to drive the first rivet. Gosh, it was proud. I hammered some more. We even noticed we were getting some deformation of the skin. We continued to drive rivets down the first line, all the while having a nagging thought something wasn't quite right. About half way down the first line, it occurred to me, we probably out to put the stiffener in before we drive the rivets!!! Now, we are going to Van's Aircraft to order a new rudder skin. The moral of the story, if things don't seem quite right, stop & figure out why!!!
 
Amen to that. I did the exact same thing on one of the elevators. Nothing like a nice, long row of rivets in only one piece of metal. Decorative, at best.
 
cool sorta

JDerrick said:
Started this morning watching sunrise & sharing a cup of coffee with my wife, aka "bucker." After the second cup of coffee, she suggested we work on the RV.
Click to expand...
sorry to hear of your misfortune but you gotta love the gal that is ready to work on the plane before you.;)
 
William
Thanks for the encouragement. Yes, I am blessed. She was helping me work on the rudder skeleton this afternoon.

JDerrick:
 
WOW

Wow does that bring back memories. I remember when I did that I was so proud of how well things were going. Man this back riveting is the way to go. I was so into the process and then I looked over at the stiffeners laying on the other side of the bench. DOH!

Do you think we are the only ones to do this?????:D

This won't be the last time you do something more than once.
 
I did something very similar yesterday and caught my mistake today.

I was working on the rudder and I checked the plans. I thought they called for rivets that were 3.5. Today I went back and looked at the planes. The upside down triangles (on the plans) were for rivets that were 3's. But the right side up triangles were for 3.5's.

I had put all the rivets in. :(

Fortunately it was only .5 difference from VAN's plans. Come to find out, 3's were right at 1.5x.

It's a stupid mistake, but probably okay. The rivets drove fine but I'm going to call VANS just to get another opinion.

From now on, I'm going to use highlighters to mark rivet types on the plans. All the blues are 3's. All the yellows are 3.5's. All the pinks are 8's..... You get the idea.

I was lucky that I made a mistake in the right direction.
 
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I find it handy to just go along the rivet holes and write down the various sizes if there are different ones used in the same row. esp. near ribs etc.
 
...be wary of the plans too...

...because the rivet callout is often not ideal. On my pre-punched -8 there are places where the rivets are woefully inadequate (this is the usual 'way'), and other places where they are so long there'd be no chance of bucking them straight (this is less usual - actually, has only happened once).

The moral here is check the plans, and then make your own informed decision. If it doubt check the rivet specs and the material thickness. Go ahead and buck one and see how it comes out. According to several posts I've seen right here in the forums, Vans usually state, when pushed, that the rivet sizes called out in the plans are a guide only and the builder should determine the correct size for their plane...
 
The same, but different

Before I got enough courage to drill the very FIRST hole in my kit (the HS skin/spar) I spent hours reading the plans and watching the videos. Finally, packed full of tension, I began the great mission of my life: building an airiplane! Wow, I'm somebody! Only after getting about halfway down the first line of holes did I notice that they seemed kinda big. Those shiny new 3/32" clecoes sort of rattled around in those holes - I thought they might be a little looser after drilling, but not that loose. Yup: the videos start with 1/8" rivets between the spar and ribs, but the plans, and my hands, begin with the 3/32" holes between skin and spar. You can't serve two masters! I couldn't drill them smaller no matter how hard I tried. I thought momentarily about the "cheater" rivets with 3/32" head and 1/8" shaft, but I couldn't bear the thought that my very first act on the kit was to screw it up, so: new HS skin and spar. D'oh! It really sucks being human!
Clay Cook
sealing tanks
 
I re-ordered rudder skins and stiffeners about 1.5 months back. Welcome to the club, and hopefully you'll recover quickly!
 
I'm smiling big here. I thought I was the sole goofus that momentarily gloated over a perfectly backriveted portion of my elevator ...only to discover I didn't put the stiffeners in place first. As somebody said, "Nothing like a perfect row of rivets thru only one layer of metal."
Heck, if they at least stuck up in the air I could tell folks they were VGs. :eek:
 
No stiffener

I did the exact same thing. You sure feel dumb! We were able to drill out the rivets and redo with the siffeners in place. Hope yours goes well next time. Bill
 
And, if it doesn't FEEL right, it probably isn't

Okay, I guess it's time for me to fess up. Last spring, during my conditional inspection, I had removed the floor panels for inspection. After finishing up the inspections and maintainance, I somewhat hastily put the plane back together. I was anxious to fly down to Houston and there was weather lurking between me and him. I tried to do due diligence on confirming that the plane was ready to go. External inspection, check the stick controls, and make a complete run-up. Off I went.

At some point, I noted that the rudder seemed much stiffer than before but it didn't cause any real problem with controls. I convinced myself that I just needed to lubricate some pivot point, but kept forgetting to do so.

Finally, several months later, I was flying the Paul in the right seat and commented that the rudder had been stiff and I needed to remember to figure out why once we got on the ground. "Remind me." Well, I was really surprised to see the much more serious than I expected reason for the resistance. The left control cable had been inadvertently routed under the floor panel (under the pilot's seat). As easy fix that should have been addressed after the first flight!

IMG_1341.JPG


If it don't feel right, it ain't right.
 
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It is amazing how we can convince ourselves that something that isn't right really is! Take Louise's "trapped" rudder cable for instance. The first time that I recall flying her airplane was AFTER the annual inspection, so the rudder was always stiff for me. I must have flown three or four flights that way. I am used to hardly using any rudder in the air in an RV (very well coordinated in fact), and on the ground, well, I just figured that it was stiff because the tailwheel was on the ground, and that had things locked up. But then this summer, we were up in Minnesota, and took a day trip to Duluth. Stiff rudder taxiing out for take-off ("Oh yeah, that's just Mikey..."), but it didn't register. Ten I landed on the little "aircraft carrier" runway at Sky Harbor with about a 15 knot direct crosswind. Yeah, that got my attention ("man, that rudder is stiff!"). Still, I thought "well, it's always been that way...", and we mounted up and headed back to the twin Cities after a lunch on the beach. I made probably the worst landing I've had in years when we returned - a gusty, strong crosswind made rudder control essential, and I just didn't have it. As we taxied in, I finally said to myself "OK Paul, either this airplane is beyond you, or something just isn't right!"

When I stopped to think about it, there wasn't any way it could be that stiff. I crawled under the panel, and wiggled the pedals, thinking a bearing was binding. Nope, that wasn't it! then I tugged on the cable and realized I'd found the stiff component. The entrapment was quickly discovered.

Yup, I flew it numerous times, and it never felt right, but I kept flying it because I figured that was just "normal" for this machine. I fly a LOT of different panes, and everyone has it's differences. But dang it - it's an RV-6, just like Doug's - it should have rang bells in my head. But when you are used to compensating for different machines, it is easy to do so when you should, instead, be asking questions.

We can all be fooled now and again, which is why it's a great idea to have other people look in on your project - and your maintenance once you are flying. I am looking forward to having Louise (eventually) in the same house and hangar, so we can cross-check each other. I believe in flying as a crew, even when I'm alone, by cross-checking myself - why do maintenance any different?

Paul
 
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