Drilling the Skins

I peeled the blue plastic off the right horizontal stabilizer skin so I could match drill it to the ribs. To match drill the holes, you first put temporary fasteners (clecos) in the every other computer punched hole, and then final drill the holes to size (they're slightly undersized on purpose) and then swap the clecos to finish the rest of the holes. This makes the alignment very accurate.

You can see the reflection of the raised garage door on the skin. Some builders leave their aircraft unpainted and polish them to a very high gloss but they say it's a lot of work to keep them looking good. I plan on painting but the bare metal look is tempting. Reminds me of a World War II fighter.

First Oops

Had my first oops today on a rib in the horizontal stabilizer (the hole should be round, not oval). It was the first time I had used my angle drill and I hadn't practiced with it which was a mistake. One piece of advice I got at the beginning of my flying was that "if there's any doubt, there's NO doubt!" In other words, if you're not sure, err on the side of caution. I probably could have made an acceptable repair but I had doubts so there was no doubt that I was ordering replacement parts. Luckily, Van's sells replacement parts at cost if you've already purchased a kit so it's not a big deal. Try that at the local car dealer.

First Skin On

Finally got a skin on the horizontal stabilizer. Here's a shot of the left half of the stab showing some of the ribs before the clecos go in. This isn't the final assembly but an intermediate step to align and match drill the holes where the rivets go. The skin will come off to be deburred and dimpled before being reassembled for final riveting. The protective blue plastic will be removed before final assembly.

Here's the skin buttoned up with clecos. Clecos are temporary fasteners that hold things together in alignment during assembly. Paula got me the yellow boots for the clecos to protect the skins. It was encouraging to see something starting to look like an airplane part and not just some aluminum scraps.

Countersinking and Dimpling

Did my first countersinking and dimpling yesterday on the braces for the horizontal stabilizer spar. I practiced several times on some scraps as I was nervous about doing it for the first time on the real deal. It came out great.

Here's my Tatco squeezer with Avery dimple dies on the left and my countersink cage on the right. I got an ebay deal on 7 countersink cages and bits so I'll be able to adjust them individually and not spend time changing bits and readjusting for the correct depth for every job which you have to do if you only have one. When you adjust the countersink cage for depth, you loosen the retaining nut and rotate it one "sawtooth" to raise or lower it 1/1000th of an inch. You can see the interlocking sawteeth in the picture below.

Sanding Spar Braces

Here's one of the braces for the front spar of the horizontal stabilizer. Had to taper the ends per the plans and smooth and polish to prevent stress risers. The part will get a 6 degree bend to match the bend on the spar. Got a new tool today that really makes the job much easier, faster and safer.

Here's the new tool in the crib. It's a Craftsman stationary sander with a 6in disc and a 42in belt. Very reasonably priced and sure to get lots of use. You can already see a pile of aluminum grindings below the upright belt.

The Dodge Dart

Haven't worked on the airplane in several days. Here's what I have been working on with Austin. It's his 72 Dodge Dart that we're in the process of swapping the slant 6 for a V-8. Quite a job but actually kinda' fun working on it together. The engine hoist will come in handy for hanging the RV engine in a few years. Hope Austin can return the favor.

(update: May, 2009) Austin had a mild overheat on the Dart so we pulled the engine and tore it down to look for damage. It wasn't serious so we replaced all the gaskets and reassembled it and made some improvements while we were at it. We added a Lokar kick-down cable with a matching stainless throttle cable. We removed some head studs which made it hard to remove the Hooker headers. We also carefully straightened the oil pan to stop a small leak in the corner. All appears well as he is using it for his daily driver.

(update: June, 2009) The new motor is running too good! Austin broke the rear end so we had to R&R a new (used) one. The new one has 3.23 gears for faster acceleration and now it's easy to smoke the tires.

More Horizontal Stab

Work continues on the Horizontal Stabilizer Front Spar. This was a tricky little part to fabricate. The flange needed to be bent up 6 degrees. I have a framing square that I used to mark 6 degrees on the workbench and then bent the part until it matched. Here I am showing how it matches the plans.



Here's the wood block clamp I fabricated to get a clean straight bend. I think having lots of woodworking tools will come in handy.



Here's me getting close to finishing the horizontal stab spar.

Horizontal Stab Forward Spar

Started in on the Horizontal Stabilizer Front Spar. Had to move the big box with the skins into the extra bedroom to make more room on the workbench. This is a little more challenging than the rear spar.

Learned a new rule of thumb tonight. Stop working when there's blood on your thumb. Yeow, that Vixen file is sharp!

Horizontal Stab Rear Spar

My first milestone! Finished the Horizontal Stabilizer Rear Spar assembly section on page 1 of the manual. Those who have gone before me advise "don't build an airplane, just build a part and then build another part, etc.". Sounds like the old joke: "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time". This is my first bite. Only 10,000 more to go. Not really, but I think it does help to not focus too much on the big picture to avoid getting overwhelmed.

Dimple Die & Squeezer Holder

Here's my homemade dimple die and squeezer set holder and the dimple dies and squeezers I got on e-bay. A did the drilling.

Drilled My First Aluminum

Got a good start tonight. Drilled my first aluminum on the rear spar of the horizontal stabilizer. The other hands in the picture are Austin's. He really got into installing and moving the clecos. S was busy with my Christmas present and now my older workbench and pegboard looks much more organized.

Empennage Arrived

The empennage kit (tail feathers) arrived yesterday! I inventoried the kit today and was really impressed at how well Van's packed the kit. Not a scratch or dent anywhere. It took about 2 hours to complete the inventory as there were 5 pages of parts to check. Not a single one missing. Good job, Van's! I got a kick out of the warning on the box. I think after I empty it, I'll cut this section out and tack it to the factory (garage) wall.

The empennage kit comes in 2 boxes that just about cover my 2 workbenches. The largest box is 5 feet long. I may have to move my tool boxes on the bottom shelf to make room for the parts waiting for assembly.

I'm trying to show with this picture how well the parts are packed. This is probably Van's 10,000th tail kit shipped so they've gotten pretty good at it.

Tool Storage

Here's what I'm using for tool storage. Not fancy but it works. To ward off rust, I sprinkle absorbent silica beads like the ones in the little packets in new shoes ("SILICA GEL, DO NOT EAT!) in each box. I get it at Hobby Lobby in the flower section. A 5lb bag costs $12.95 and after the little blue specs have turned pink indicating they've absorbed moisture, I dry them in the oven at 250 for 30 minutes and they're good to use again.

Christmas Presents

Here's one of the aircraft tools I got for Christmas. It's a micrometer for very accurately measuring things. Thank you very much, Aunt Peggy and Uncle Steve! Too much...but I'll keep it.



I also got these tools from Paula. They're a 12 inch #40 aviation drill, a numbered drill gauge, 4 drill stops, a drill housing and bushing kit (eye cups), and 300 3/32 clecos. She told me she got them because she loves me and knows this is important to me, not necessarily because she wants me to build a flying maching in the garage.

 

Last but not least, here's my new Drill Press thanks to G-ma Smith. Cleaned off the packing grease and gave it a good coat of T-9 Boeshield to ward off rust.

Workshop in the Garage

Here's a shot of the aircraft factory, aka "the garage". I'm still waiting to collect my Christmas present of "3 hours of workshop organizing" from Shelby & Austin. Most builders start in their garage and only move to the airport when they are close to the end of the build or when they need to mount the wings as the airplane is about 25 feet wide with the wings on.

Workbench T-Nuts

This is a simple way to clamp my 2 EAA standard workbenches together. I clamped the tables together making sure the tops were perfectly level and then drilled a hole through both legs and used T-Nuts and 6in. bolts to secure them together.