RVG8tor
Well Known Member
Well I was looking at Mickey's site and saw an issue he had attaching his HS and not having edge distance on the angle at the F810 bulkhead. http://www.rv8.ch/article.php?story=2004031620072395 Since I am about to drill my HS stab on I thought I would take a look at mine and sure enough, one side is great but the other is off by 1/8" or so, it is tough to measure. You can see the difference in the photo. I called Van's builder support and even though the critical part is to have the bolt centered on the longeron, Ken thought it would not be too much work to drill off the aft deck and replace this angle, so I guess I have some rivets to drill out!
I wanted to post here because Mickey's site gave me a heads up, not sure if there are others out there with this issue. I could just try to drill out the angle only but the manufactured heads are not very visible for drilling and I don't think I want to try drilling out from the tail side of the rivet. Although I think I could reset the rivets easy enough through opening I have. I will have to think that one over. Ken's advice was to just take the aft deck off, sometimes what seems like the long route actually is the better way to go.
Any one with experience or advice please chime in. My plan is to clamp a brace across the longerons forward of the aft deck to hold things in alignment; fuselage has only 0.1 degree difference (twist) between the front and aft end and I don't want to mess that up Then I will drill out the aft deck, custom mill the angle to this opening and then reinstall everything.
This is looking from the bottom up towards the aft deck. This is what it should look like. The other photo shows the gap I have.
Ken did apologize about this but obviously that does not help me now but they will make a note to check this on future kits.
I wanted to post here because Mickey's site gave me a heads up, not sure if there are others out there with this issue. I could just try to drill out the angle only but the manufactured heads are not very visible for drilling and I don't think I want to try drilling out from the tail side of the rivet. Although I think I could reset the rivets easy enough through opening I have. I will have to think that one over. Ken's advice was to just take the aft deck off, sometimes what seems like the long route actually is the better way to go.
Any one with experience or advice please chime in. My plan is to clamp a brace across the longerons forward of the aft deck to hold things in alignment; fuselage has only 0.1 degree difference (twist) between the front and aft end and I don't want to mess that up Then I will drill out the aft deck, custom mill the angle to this opening and then reinstall everything.
This is looking from the bottom up towards the aft deck. This is what it should look like. The other photo shows the gap I have.
Ken did apologize about this but obviously that does not help me now but they will make a note to check this on future kits.