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RV-7A JCarne

Fantastic! I bet you are having fun now for sure with those wings behind you and doing the ctr section.
 
I want to build. I just don't know that I know what I'm doing. I've never built anything like that before. And I kind of have struggled with the practice flap. I'm sure once I went through it I would be fine.
 
Steenos said:
I want to build. I just don't know that I know what I'm doing. I've never built anything like that before. And I kind of have struggled with the practice flap. I'm sure once I went through it I would be fine.
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I had much the same feeling while doing the practice kits. Turns out I just cared less about how they came out. I have found that A) building a plane isn't too difficult, just time consuming. B) mistakes are inevitable and you will have to order new parts from time to time (literally just placed an order for two new seat ribs) to get what you want in terms of quality. C) I pay waaaaaay more attention to what I'm doing and make sure I'm thinking and taking my time when working with expensive stuff such as wing spars. and finally, D) you can do whatever you set your mind to. Don't let the fact you haven't done something like this stop you, anyone can do it! :)
 
Steenos said:
I want to build. I just don't know that I know what I'm doing. I've never built anything like that before. And I kind of have struggled with the practice flap. I'm sure once I went through it I would be fine.
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I've told ya to swing by the house one day, and I'd show you the ropes on that practice kit. :-) You can get a feel for what kind of tools you'll need and the skills involved.
 
Time to put the aft fuselage back together, for the last time! :D

Riveting the last two bulkheads to the thick bottom skin was a nightmare!!!!!!! I want to meet the person who enjoyed that part of the build and buy them an ice cream cone or something. I have about 3 rivets that aren't perfect by any means but I suppose if they ever give me problems I can drill them suckers out and put a cherry max in there and be done with it.

On a brighter side, I started riveting a little on the main part of the aft fuselage and those are a breeze so far.

20180629_181719 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Using a laser to make sure all of the bulkhead tooling holes are lined up, indicating no twist. I struggled with a little bit of twist before taking it apart but it has worked itself out. I'll keep an eye on it.

20180629_181711 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
Started riveting the aft fuselage, going good so far, got the bottom skins done and a few bulkheads up to the upper j-stringer. Pics coming soon, can't ruin the grand reveal.

Almost finished everything for the crotch strap kit. This is super time consuming if you don't have a tight fit right angle drill! You basically have to take it apart and put it together about 6 times so you can drill everything properly.

20180630_142417 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

20180630_215520 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

88.8 hrs logged for the month of June. Next month may be my strongest one yet, I am bound and determined to break 100 hrs for that month! My mascot was going pretty hard this weekend as well.

20180630_203452 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
Gotta have a right angle drill...I got one off eBay under $100. I use it all the time. Looking good!
 
Inspiring

Jereme, we were at the same point earlier this month, but you are blowing me away. You are doing great.

Since I am behind now, I am really into your blog.

So what drill sizes do you need for right angle drilling the crotch straps?
 
kentlik said:
Gotta have a right angle drill...I got one off eBay under $100. I use it all the time. Looking good!
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I got my attachment on order as we speak!

PilotjohnS said:
Jereme, we were at the same point earlier this month, but you are blowing me away. You are doing great.

Since I am behind now, I am really into your blog.

So what drill sizes do you need for right angle drilling the crotch straps?
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John I'm glad my build log is helping someone, I use a couple of peoples build logs as I go and I'm glad I can return the favor! The right angle attachment needed for the crotch strap to seat ribs is 1/8". Not a big deal without one, just way more time consuming. However, after looking at a build log there is another spot coming up shortly on the forward fuse that we will need one again.
 
I am working more steady now that I am watching your build, Carne. It is a great motivator. I am just trying to keep up the pace with you! Not wanting to see you flying, which would be great, and still be trying to finish my wings...haha

I guess this site is the best thing to happen to my build thus far, for many reasons!
 
kentlik said:
I am working more steady now that I am watching your build, Carne. It is a great motivator. I am just trying to keep up the pace with you! Not wanting to see you flying, which would be great, and still be trying to finish my wings...haha

I guess this site is the best thing to happen to my build thus far, for many reasons!
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I hear you Kent, your build log of the canopy has me pushing pretty hard right now! Days when I am really in a rut I make my way over to the trip write ups section and read some very motivational picture books. :)
 
Well my rivet buddy decided to go to the mountains today so I started working on the "fun" part of the center section... deburring.

I got half of the 18 ribs done and also decided to take a break at one point to rivet the F-705 bulkhead. I'm REALLY glad I went with the paint before rivet idea, the contrasting rivets looks next level cool to me.

As a tip to others, don't forget there is a rivet under each of the bar doublers that MUST be set first. Luckily I only set two rivets before realizing this.

20180701_142555 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Dang this looks cool!

20180701_142601 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
Well my rivet buddy made it over yesterday so we finished banging out the aft fuselage rivets. I am quite happy with how things turned out. There is a little light distortion of the skins around the aft two bulkheads but luckily those are covered by the horizontal stabilizer. It's really not bad, I'm just a perfectionist.

20180702_210721 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

20180702_210818 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

20180702_210756 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

pic by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

20180702_210830 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

20180702_210844 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
Today I got all of the parts for the center section primed with the exception of the skin. Tomorrow I will prime the skin and start putting things together. Getting really close to making things nice and big!

20180703_163224 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
Well I have been logging about 6-8 hours a day for the past week so I'm really getting things done! Unfortunately I have to take a week off next week to go take a college class. At least it pays me though, more funds for the project! :D

I got the bottom center section skin all primed up and dimpled.

20180704_123044 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

I fitted and primed the autopilot pitch bracket. Way easy to install before things get mated together.

20180703_230701 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

I started riveting the skeleton of the center section.

20180705_125921 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

I finished riveting the center section skeleton.

20180705_144501 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Heck, I even torqued and sealed the bolts. (man this looks so cool!!!)

20180705_144518 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Oh daaaang I even got the center section all ready for riveting.

20180705_212850 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Tomorrow I will work on getting the aft fuselage ready for mating with the center section. See you all in about a week.
 
nilberg said:
You're making good progress and it's looking good.

One tip: The torques seal is not supposed to be on the bolt. It's between the nut and a solid surface. See http://www.eaavideo.org/detail/video/29739769001
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Thanks for the nice comment!

I disagree with this method on using torque seal. I think it is more important to know if the nut has rotated with respect to the bolt (theoretically if it's not on the threads the bolt could rotate and the nut remain stationary and you wouldn't know). If I have to remove a bolt with torque seal on it I am just going to replace it anyways.
 
Torque seal

jcarne said:
Thanks for the nice comment!

I disagree with this method on using torque seal. I think it is more important to know if the nut has rotated with respect to the bolt (theoretically if it's not on the threads the bolt could rotate and the nut remain stationary and you wouldn't know). If I have to remove a bolt with torque seal on it I am just going to replace it anyways.
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Agreed
It should be a line from bolt to nut to surface. Anything turns and it's easily noticed.
 
Trying to say

nilberg said:
You're making good progress and it's looking good.

One tip: The torques seal is not supposed to be on the bolt. It's between the nut and a solid surface. See http://www.eaavideo.org/detail/video/29739769001
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I agree the torque strip should be from the surface onto the nut to the bolt. I think the video is mistaken in that the torque strip should not be on the “bolt” side of the fastener; but it definetly needs to indicate if the nut has turned on the bolt.
 
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Well there isn't a lot of pics in this post but the one that is says a lot. :)

Mating the center section to the aft fuselage was a pain, the side skins were easy. Let me rephrase that, clecoeing the side skins was easy, I'm not trying to jinx myself for the conical bends tomorrow.

20180717_210140 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
RV7ForMe said:
You are working so fast! And looking great btw! How many hours a month do you put into this baby?
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kentlik said:
about 358 a month as far as I can tell...
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haha Kent is just a little off, I wish I could put that much time in. June was about 90 hrs, this month I am already at about 65, pretty sure I will be breaking 100 this month no problem at all. I am a teacher so summer breaks let me really cruise along. During the school year an average to good month is 50-65 hrs. One thing that makes a really big difference during the school year is when I get home I don't do anything else until I have at least 1-2 hours logged, every night. Someone once said it's a marathon not a sprint. :D
 
Fuselage work continues, I started the day with doing the conical bend. Not gonna lie, this had me stressed a little as I have seen countless threads of people getting cracks while doing this. There is a simple fix for the cracks but I would rather just avoid them altogether.

I did the bend in two passes, no more as you will eventually start to work harden the metal. The first pass was with a 4x4 as the edges have a nice fillet to them.

20180718_112338 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

After there was some bend I switched to an angle as you have to bend past 90 degrees.

20180718_112519 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Here is how the left side turned out.

20180718_114840 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

20180718_114845 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

And the right side...

20180718_114902 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Overall I think they came out quite nice. I about crapped a brick when I saw those hole line up nicely especially after pondering the fact that the whole process took less than 15 minutes per side. They may need a little tweak eventually depending on how the baggage bulkhead fits.

Also worth mentioning that I thoroughly deburred the reliefs before bending.
 
Those belly bends look pretty sweet Carne.

Quit priming everything and you will be done way sooner!

Alclad!
 
Doublers for armrests

May I suggest while you are there, adding doublers to your armrests. Some .032 angle (sheet Bent) riveted to the inner edge and tying into to the bulkhead and vertical spar box makes a big difference in how sturdy the armrest feels and lowers the risk of bending when in use.
 
kentlik said:
Those belly bends look pretty sweet Carne.

Quit priming everything and you will be done way sooner!

Alclad!
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I think about this almost every day, unfortunately my conscious just won't avoid the green stuff. :D

rjcthree said:
May I suggest while you are there, adding doublers to your armrests. Some .032 angle (sheet Bent) riveted to the inner edge and tying into to the bulkhead and vertical spar box makes a big difference in how sturdy the armrest feels and lowers the risk of bending when in use.
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Thanks for the reminder good sir, I have seen it done on a few peoples blogs and was planning on doing it myself. I was going to go with some 0.063 angle riveted in there.
 
Well I wrestled with the firewall today. I'm not sure if I was supposed to flute the stainless or not but I did since the middle was bowing out a little. (after doing some research it looks like you are not supposed to flute here as the piano hinge for cowl resides there, so if you are reading this don't flute here! If however you have like myself, we are not alone, get the squeezer out with some flat sets and flatten em out. Live and learn) I have also read on many many blogs that the forward fuse section is a freakin land mine of potential edge distance problems. Therefore, I am going to mark everything with black for minimum edge distance and blue is what I always use for what I'm actually shooting for. This already paid off today as the top left firewall bracket was very very close to this minimum.

20180719_144713 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Finally got the firewall drilled to the side skins.

20180719_185314 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

I also started the cut outs for the gear leg mounts. It got to about 10:15pm and I thought I better stop making noise. We will finish these tomorrow.

20180719_213213 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
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After finishing the gear leg mount holes it was time to install the various angles for the forward fuselage.

After the F-713 auxilary longerons were installed it was on to the F-719 stiffeners. The F-719 angles took quite some time as the clips can have an edge distance problem if your not careful making them.

20180720_163916 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Then it was on to the lower longerons, these guys have gotten many a great builders in trouble with edge distance. You can see why in this next pic. Van's tells you to drill your holes 1/2" in from the edge of the angle, I haven't read a single blog where 1/2" didn't get someone in trouble with edge distance on the steel. Therefore, mark the edge of the angle on the steel, remove the angle and measure beteween the edge distance black line and the line you just drew. For me it was barely over 3/8". I drilled the holes in the lower longeron angles about 3/8" - 7/16" in from the edge. You can see in this next pic how exact you have to be... Very close to minimum edge distance on both parts.

20180720_174930 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Then I drilled to 5/32 and finally reamed to 3/16.

Thing of beauty right here.

20180720_175702 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
Exceptional work my brother! I have been sitting on my butt staring at the canopy frame for a month...it's still there...
 
Man I tell you what, this forward fuselage was a tricky one. I made it through the whole thing without having to order replacement parts (so far).
There are quite a few spots that could get you in trouble with edge distance problems, just take your time and measure accurately.

Edge distance came out nice on these guys but it was time consuming to make sure I got it.

20180721_125505 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

The forward bulkhead is another spot edge distance could get you in trouble if your not paying close attention.

20180721_192310 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

This guy took quite some time to get fitting right. I also still need to upsize some holes.

20180721_192316 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Kinda fun installing the rudder pedals. I drilled three positions for these guys, although I know I'm probably going to need to the most aft one since I'm flippin short! :)

20180723_140305 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

If you don't own a right angle attachment or drill it's time to get one if your approaching this part of the build, I had to use it in quite a few spots.

20180723_181241 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

My right angle attachment couldn't get on the the aft most hole in these cover brackets so I got creative. Not in the picture was me with my other hand holding a cleco against the middle part of the drill bit to keep it straight instead of bowed.

20180723_184006 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
jcarne said:
...it's nice to be drilling things again...
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Come on over to Oregon and twist some cobalt in the RV-6 if you have an "itch to drill"! ;)

Progress looks good, and nice job on the conical bends. I'm still trying to decide the best way to hide my small stop-drilled cracks (on both sides :o )
 
Tdeman said:
Come on over to Oregon and twist some cobalt in the RV-6 if you have an "itch to drill"! ;)

Progress looks good, and nice job on the conical bends. I'm still trying to decide the best way to hide my small stop-drilled cracks (on both sides :o )
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Haha ya IDK how you guys put up with not having prepunched holes. :D Thanks for the compliments. I would think you could file them puppies out and throw some proseal in there, no one will ever know.
 
Well this year I reluctantly decided to forgo the Oshkosh trip as I have some really good build momentum that I don't want to lose. Plus, some day I would like to fly there not drive! :D

However, I am still enjoying the airshows while building in the garage!!!

20180725_142422 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Everything is fabricated and drilled, time for a whooooooole bunch of deburring, priming, and painting. Should have this beauty flipped in a week or so.

20180725_120757 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
Well I'm deep into the deburring process of the forward fuselage (only two more skins and the longerons to go!

I thought I would post about how I made a small titanium belly skin in case of in flight fire. I have seen pics of the damage that can occur and the aluminum belly skin will often times melt where the cowling air exits, makes sense. I have heard of a few people doing this mod but I have yet to see it on a build log for a -7 so here it goes.

Also a big shout out to TMS titanium! They straight up spanked McMaster on pricing of this stuff and have tons and tons of different sizes to choose from. Packaging was quite nice as well.

Size: I made mine about 16 inches wide by about 18 inches fwd to aft. In the pic below you can see I had to trim the front corners a bit due to edge distance issues.

20180726_120741 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Fabrication: I found that it sheers very easily on a foot sheer but drilling it is different than aluminum for sure. It seems to like a slower speed and a little harder pressure. I don't know if this is accurate but that's what worked best for me. I then placed the 0.020 titanium on top of the bottom skin and match drilled it to the skin.

20180726_120946 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Then I moved it to the bottom and here you can see the final result. Not an overly big piece but I think it will do the job quite nicely. If anyone sees any problems with this I would love to hear!

20180726_123641 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
I would say put it under both your feet, and add the fire barrier to boot!

"Firemax" Aircraft Spruce

0970F.jpg
 
kentlik said:
I would say put it under both your feet, and add the fire barrier to boot!

"Firemax" Aircraft Spruce

0970F.jpg
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I'll be slapping that stuff on the firewall for sure, been researching the Dan H threads on this. I think however I will go with titanium to cover it as the stainless foil looks like garbage (in my opinion) on the firewall (not a fan of the wrinkles). I didn't put the fibrax on the bottom but I was mainly just wanting to keep potential fire out of the cockpit on that one.
 
Prep for priming and painting of the fuselage parts is coming to a close. At this point all I have to do is debur the longerons and the aft fuselage holes. Tomorrow I will start priming and painting.

To countersink for the double flush rivets I had to really butcher my brand new right angle attachment. Oh well, it's not the first time...

20180727_152802 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

The plans have you do double flush for the first five rivets on each side; however, I found with my gear that the first hole won't interfere, the second hole is pretty much pointless to put a rivet in, leaving only three to countersink.

20180727_152818 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Countersinking the longerons wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Thank goodness for my Nova air drill, man I love that thing.

20180727_211231 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr

Seems like building an airplane is a two steps forward one step back kinda thing. :)

20180727_211843 by Jereme Carne, on Flickr
 
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Your progess is awesome! Keep it going while you have the momentum. Also Thanks for mentioning Nova drills. See they're $120. Did you get the 4000 rpm? Did you get the keyless chuck?
 
I followed Dan's advice as well, to a degree, and determined that I am going to put firemax on the inside of the firewall and on the bottom skin inside under the second floor skin I am going to add.
Heat is what we are trying to keep out for the most part I believe, and fire of course ultimately.

I am going to call you "The Machine" from now on.
Because that is what you are, a Machine!

You primed all that and riveted it all in a few days!
 
Steenos said:
Your progess is awesome! Keep it going while you have the momentum. Also Thanks for mentioning Nova drills. See they're $120. Did you get the 4000 rpm? Did you get the keyless chuck?
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Yes I have the Nova 4000 rpm, think I got it from Cleaveland. It's not a keyless chuck though, I would be very curious to try one tho because having to deal with the chuck all the time is a real drag!

kentlik said:
I followed Dan's advice as well, to a degree, and determined that I am going to put firemax on the inside of the firewall and on the bottom skin inside under the second floor skin I am going to add.
Heat is what we are trying to keep out for the most part I believe, and fire of course ultimately.

I am going to call you "The Machine" from now on.
Because that is what you are, a Machine!

You primed all that and riveted it all in a few days!
Click to expand...

Kent what do you mean inside? I just want to point out that if it's inside the cabin (aka on top of the 772 forward bottom skin) that would be a big big no no. Dan H has pointed out that this stuff smokes a lot when heated up and you certainly don't want that in cabin. I think however you probably meant under the skin but on top of the new skin and I just didn't understand properly. :)
 
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