Well today was a glorious day on the project. I finished* the first major sub-assembly of my plane. The horizontal stabilizer is done. Only had one issue which required I drill out 2 rivets and that was with the elevator brackets getting in the way of the squeezer on some rivets. I just got out the…
More riveting today. Finished up all the “bucked” rivets on the left side and moved onto the right. As I went, I found that putting a little masking tape over the mushroom set on the rivet gun reduces the marring on the skin. I saw this on some other builder sites. I’m planning on painting…
Today, I took a nice flight out to practice some short and soft field takeoffs and landings with my friend John and then I got started on the riveting. Here is the first bucked rivet of the project. Up to this point I’ve been able to “squeeze” the rivets. This is a little intimidating at…
Had a little time today so I riveted the front spar assembly together. Now it’s time to get the skins on.
A very exciting day. Spent about an hour priming. Got the hang of it pretty quickly. I have seen a bunch of people make a painting frame out of 2 x 4s and chicken wire. I’m definitely going to build one of these in the future. I used a plastic covered 4 x 8 sheet…
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…
Ryan Van Liere's RV-7A Project Page 