Today was pretty uneventful. I thought I would get some priming done but had a few errands come up. I got all the internal parts cleaned and they are all ready to be primed tomorrow. To prep, I “scrubbed” all the parts with water and a Scotch-Brite pad. Dried them and then went over them…
Today was a great day of progress on the plane. I finished de-burring the holes in the skins and dimpled the skins. I had a little time left so I de-burred the edges of the spar and skins as well. I’m so close to being able to rivet it all together. Tomorrow, I will, hopefully, get all…
Today, I finished up de-burring the holes in the skeleton and decided to start dimpling. Dimpling accomplishes the same thing as counter sinking except instead of cutting, we bend. So of course we use this process for thinner metal. I finished dimpling the skeleton today. I just have to de-burr and dimple the skins, de-burr all the edges…
Started de-burring all the holes in the skeleton. This is, pretty much, the most boring part of this project, but, absolutely necessary. After drilling, the holes have sharp edges that must be smoothed (Picture how easy aluminum foil is to rip…now imagine there’s an edge around a hole that thin. Cracks are most likely to…
Today I match drilled all the ribs to the new front spar for the left side, then attached the skin, match drilled the skin to the replacement front spar and match drilled the new rib. At this point, I am where I screwed up the left side before. Let’s see if I can successfully drill…
I decided to jump back over to the HS today and get to work forming the replacement reinforcement angle. I did a much better job this time around and am quite happy with the way it turned out. I cut the excess flange off the left front spar (which was also a replacement). Again, much…
Continued work on VS. Match drilled rib to spar attach holes and clecoed on the skin. Match drilled the skin to ribs. Now these are ready to be dimpled, de-burred, and primed for riveting.
Today, I final drilled all holes in the rear spar and prepped the ribs (fluted, de-burred, and straightened the flanges). The VS is a cakewalk compared to the HS. All holes except two are already drilled and just need to be final drilled to size. I finished today with cleco-ing the skeleton together. I was quite…
Finished bending and tapering the reinforcement angle. This time I managed to match drill the Aft Rib to Spar to Front rib quite nicely (i.e., where I screwed up the left side). After this, I final drilled all the holes in the skin and took it all apart. Now everything is ready to de-burr, dimple,…
Replacement parts arrived today. I did just a bit today. I got to work on tapering and bending the new reinforcement angle which attaches the two front spars together. This was all I needed to finish drilling the right side.
Ryan Van Liere's RV-7A Project Page 