Posts Tagged priming
F-706, F-709 and F-710 Bulkhead Work (1/16/12)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Bulkheads, Construction, Fuselage on January 16, 2012
3.0 Hours -
Another day of bulkhead work…
My first task was to get some of the F-706 components ready for priming and riveting. However, before I could do that, I still had to match-drill, deburr, and dimple (as necessary), the F-706 base, F-730 plate, F-728 bellcrank channel, and F-729 bellcrank rib. Once that was done, I scuffed, cleaned and primed all of the angles and the F-706 base.
Another picture of priming. This is a few of the F-706 bulkhead parts.
Next, I started working on the F-709 and F-710 bulkheads. The F-709 was the easiest to complete since it is a one-piece bulkhead and it only needed to be deburred and fluted for now. The F-710 was a little more complicated, but not by much. The F-710 is also a one-piece bulkhead, but it also requires a small length of angle to be fabricated.
I would have made quick work of the F-710B angle if I could have found the correct angle stock. However, I spent well over a half-hour searching the garage for the 17 inch length of .125 x 1 x 1 angle stock that was listed on the inventory sheet. Since it was checked off the inventory, I knew it was hiding somewhere. When I was just about to give up, I finally found it buried deep inside the parts crate. For some reason, I didn’t put this piece of angle stock in the same place as all the other angle stock! Once the angle was located, making the F-710B was a piece of cake.
It took me longer to find the right angle stock than it did to make the actual part!
The F-709 and F-710 bulkheads after being straightened.
F-706, F-707, F-708 Bulkheads Continued (1/14/12)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Bulkheads, Construction, Fuselage on January 14, 2012
1.8 Hours -
I’m back to work on the plane after taking about a week off from the project. The main reason for the break is that I got married last weekend. We had a small beach ceremony in South Padre Island, TX. The weather was perfect and it was nice to see some family members that we had not seen in a while. Now, I’ve got to get this plane built so that we can cut down the travel time to South Padre. Six hour drives are no fun, but two-hour flights are!
Amber and Ethan - South Padre Island, TX - January 8, 2012
Back in the garage, it took me a little time to remember what was left to be done on the bulkheads. I had received my #10 drill from Aircraft Spruce, so I decided to finish up the F-661EF flap bearing blocks first. After enlarging the first hole in the blocks to #10, I mounted the blocks on the F-705 bulkhead assembly with one bolt and a clamp.
After drilling one hole in the flap bearing block, I used a bolt and a clamp to position it for drilling the second hole.
Since I had marked a center line on the blocks, it was easy to make sure the blocks were straight. Once aligned, I used my air drill to start the hole for the second bolt. However, I only drilled this hole about 1/4″. Then, with the hole “marked”, I moved the block to the drill press to finish the hole since I didn’t think I could make a straight hole by hand through the two-inch thick blocks.
I only drilled the second hole about 1/4" while the block was clamped to the bulkhead...it will get finished on the drill press.
The drill press makes straight holes quickly in the plastic.
Once the second hole was drilled in the blocks, I temporarily installed the blocks on the bulkhead using the appropriate bolts, washers, and nuts. However, I only loosely installed the nuts for now since the blocks will be removed to rivet the skins.
The finished product. Only loosely installed for now since they will have to come off to rivet the skins.
With the flap blocks out-of-the-way, I moved on to the F-706, 707, and 708 bulkheads once again. As I stated in a previous post, these parts are just plain ugly and they need a lot of finishing work. For today, I finished deburring and fluting the F-707 and F-708 components. However, I decided to wait on the F-706 bulkhead parts as they will require the most work. Since these parts are all such a mess, I’m going to prime them. In this case, the primer is mainly for appearance, not corrosion protection. I managed to clean, scuff and prime the F-707 and 708 parts today, so at least I’ll be able to rivet those together and set them aside tomorrow.
The remaining bulkheads are made from such crappy stock that I'm going to prime them.
Firewall Countersinking Finished (12/21/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Firewall, Fuselage on December 21, 2011
1.5 Hours -
All of the firewall components are now countersunk as needed. I decided that I would prime everything except the firewall itself. The angles are not alclad, so priming makes sense on those. The gussets, however, are alclad, but I’ll prime them just for consistency…why not? For tonight, I only made it as far as scuffing all the parts with a maroon Scotchbrite pad. I still need to clean them before priming.
The firewall stiffeners, gussets, and brackets, are scuffed and ready for priming.
Right Aileron Work (3/6/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Wings on March 6, 2011
2.7 Hours -
As renters, a lawn service was included in our rent. Now that we own the house, we are trying to save some money and do that work ourselves. Since the grass in San Antonio is already starting to turn green and grow, we had to buy a lawn mower, trimmer, and fertilizer spreader sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, these things take up a lot of room in the garage. The previous owner of the house did a great job of finishing out the attic, so it is now very easy to store things up there. Rather than buying an electric winch and trying to rig it to lift the lawn mower into the attic, like I’ve seen other RV builders do, I decided it would be easier to move most of the tail surfaces up there. The entire empennage, minus the horizontal stabilizer, now sits comfortably in one corner of the attic. I shouldn’t need to retrieve them until they are ready to be attached to the fuselage. Moving these out of the garage cleared up just enough space to store the lawn mower and fertilizer spreader.
We had to move some stuff up into the attic, so I decided to move my empennage parts up there as well.
Here's a broader view of the attic with my emp parts tucked nicely into the back corner.
House projects took the majority of my time this weekend. However, on Sunday, I allotted myself 45 minutes to work on the plane. Before I knew it, this 45 minutes became 2 hours and 45 minutes. Oh well, I still got everything done at the house that I had planned to do!
I already had the right aileron clecoed together, so the first thing I did was final drill all of the holes, including the holes in the counterbalance pipe. Once this was done, I disassembled the parts and countersunk the holes on the counterbalance pipe. I thought it would be challenging to countersink holes on a curved surface, but it turned out to be fairly simple to do with my electric drill and countersink cage.
The aileron counterbalance pipes are countersunk. I thought this would be difficult with the curved surface, but it really wasn't.
I countersunk both pipes and then decided to prime them. Even though the pipes are galvanized, I still worried about steel and aluminum together since they are dissimilar metals. Priming these may not do me any good, but at least it sets my mind at ease.
I decided to prime the counterbalance pipe. Even though they are galvanized, I worried about bare steel on aluminum.
Finally, I started the tedious process of deburring all of the right aileron parts. As usual, this is what took the majority of my time. However, the right aileron is now ready for dimpling and rivets.
All of the right aileron parts have been deburred, they are now ready for dimpling and assembly.
Aileron Stiffeners Primed (2/25/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Wings on February 25, 2011
0.7 Hours -
More priming…
Tonight, I cleaned and primed the aileron stiffeners. This will be the bulk of my priming on the ailerons…my primer use is going to start seeing serious reductions!
The aileron stiffeners all cleaned up before priming.
Primed stiffeners.
Bottom Inboard Skin Prep (1/17/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Main Structure, Wings on January 17, 2011
3.5 Hours -
Today, I finished prepping the bottom inboard skins for both wings.
I picked-up where I left off on the left skin and finished dimpling. Once this was done, I scuffed, cleaned and primed the inside surface of the skin.
An action shot of some dimpling.
As the primer dried on the left skin, I returned to my ongoing task of pulling wiring conduit through the right wing. I don’t know what it was, but for some reason I was able to pull the conduit much faster today. After 15 minutes, I had the conduit completely pulled through the 4 ribs of the wing walk area. Once the wing walk area was done, the rest of the wing was easy.
It took me two weeks, but the conduit is now completely installed in the right wing.
After the primer was dry on the left bottom inboard skin, I temporarily mounted it to the wing with a few clecoes (mainly to get it out-of-the-way). Then, I turned my attention to the same skin for the right wing and started the whole process over…deburr, dimple, scuff, clean, prime.
More priming...this is the inside of the bottom inboard skin.
Once primer was on the right skin, I turned my attention to the pitot/AOA tube. The pitot/AOA tube is the only other thing that I need to install inside the wing before buttoning it up. It could be installed after the skins are riveted, but it is easier now. The first decision to make is where to install it. If I follow the instruction from Safeair, it will be installed on the outboard side of the first rib outboard of the bellcrank. Since the bellcrank and the tie-down ring are at the same position, some RVers have found this location to be problematic as tie-down ropes may interfere with the pitot tube (the stubby wings of an RV often cause tie-down ropes to point towards the cockpit instead of away). To prevent this interference, some builders have moved the pitot tube inboard of the bellcrank. I need to do some research to see how far inboard people have moved it. From what I can tell, screw for the fuel tank will interfere with more inboard mounting unless I modify the pitot mast somewhat. In the meantime, I went ahead and installed all of the snap bushings in the wing ribs for the pitot and AOA lines.
A possible location for the pitot tube is in the bay outboard of the bellcrank in the left wing.
I installed the snap bushings for the pitot/AOA lines. However, I'm not sure where the pitot tube will be, so some of these may come out.
Riveted Flap Braces and Aileron Gap Seals (1/15/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Main Structure, Wings on January 15, 2011
3.0 Hours -
In the morning, I set up a 2″ Scotchbrite wheel in my die grinder and used that to deburr the lightening holes in the flap braces. There are quite a few holes in each part, but deburring went fairly quickly.
Once the flap braces were deburred, I scuffed, cleaned and primed both the flap braces and the aileron gap seals.
Yes, yet another priming picture. I definitely prefer the NAPA 7220 self-etching primer over Duplicolor.
Later in the day, I returned to the garage and riveted the flap braces and aileron gap seals to the wings. The flap braces went on first and I had to buck/shoot all of the rivets attaching the flap braces to the aft spars. fortunately, they were all set well with no drill-outs or other problems.
The flap braces are riveted to the aft spar. The other side will be riveted to the bottom skin and flap hinge.
After the flap braces were on, I riveted the aileron gap seals to the wings. The gap seals were riveted to the aft spar first. Most of these rivets could be squeezed, but the rivets that attached the gap seal to both the aft spar and a rib had to be bucked due to the rib making access with squeezer challenging. After the rivets in the aft spar were set, I squeezed the rivets that attach the gap seal to the top skins. Once again, I lucked out and had no bad rivets on the gap seals!
The inboard portion of the aileron gap seal after it has been riveted to both the aft spar and the top skin.
The outboard end of the aileron gap seal.
The next step in plans is to rivet the bottom skins to the wings. However, I’m wondering if I should delay this until last and build/fit the ailerons and flaps first.
With the flap braces and aileron gap seals riveted, its time to work on the bottom skins.
Aileron Bracket Assembly (12/30/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Main Structure, Wings on December 30, 2010
3.5 Hours -
I’m in a bit of a holding pattern right now. The wings are waiting for the top skins to be riveted, and the right tank is waiting to be leak tested before it can be installed on the wing. The plan is to rivet the skins on Saturday with help from my Dad, and the tank still needs a few days to allow the sealant to set before pressure testing. In the meantime, I’m trying to find small tasks that can be started.
The first of these tasks is to start assembling the aileron brackets. The parts for the brackets came in a sub-kit, and I was smart enough to keep these small parts together, so they were easy to find. I removed all the blue vinyl from the alclad parts and marked them with their part number. Then, I deburred the edges by first using a vixen file to smooth them, followed by the Scotchbrite wheel to round the edges a bit.
All of the aileron bracket parts came in a sub-kit...making them easy to find in my pile-o-airplane parts.
After assembling the brackets with clecoes, I double checked that I had them oriented correctly before final drilling the parts.
I then rough assembled the parts with clecoes, drilled all of the holes to size, except for the bracket to spar holes, and then disassembled the brackets. There were a few holes that had to be countersunk, so I did that before scuffing the parts. Then, I cleaned and primed the parts.
Yep...another priming picture.
After the primer dried, I assembled the brackets according to the plans. All of the rivets could be squeezed, but the 470-11 rivets were almost too long for my squeezer and gave me a bit of trouble. With the brackets assembled, they are ready to be riveted to the wings as soon as the skins are on.
Two of the brackets after final assembly. These are now ready to be riveted to the wings as soon as the skins are on.
More Skin Prep (12/28/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Main Structure, Wings on December 28, 2010
2.1 Hours -
Nothing too exciting today. Just a lot of deburring, dimpling, and priming. This time, I was working on the right wing’s top outboard skin.
More dimpling...this time, the right top outboard skin.
More Left Leading Edge Work (12/4/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Leading Edges, Wings on December 4, 2010
2.5 Hours -
This morning, I went to the garage and finished dimpling the left leading edge skin using a c-frame. Once this was done, I scuffed the inside of the rivet lines and sprayed some primer.
After dimpling the skin, I primed only along the rivet lines on the inside of the skin.
Once the primer dried, I riveted the stall warner access reinforcement ring to the skin. Initially, I planned to back rivet this…I even had the rivets taped in place…but, then I realized that I could reach them all with the squeezer. Since the squeezer is the simplest way to rivet, I opt to use it whenever I can!
Ready to start riveting, I clecoed the access reinforcement ring to the skin.
All of the rivets for the access reinforcement ring could be reached with the squeezer...easy!
A view of the access reinforcement ring from the inside.
After the reinforcement ring was riveted, I clecoed all of the ribs to the skin (except for the inboard rib, since I’m waiting for a replacement rib) and then took a break.
I clecoed all of the ribs (except for the inboard...still waiting for the replacement part to arrive) to the skin in preparation for riveting.
Later, in the evening, I returned to garage and started riveting the ribs. As with the right leading edge, I worked from aft to forward, squeezing the top two rows of rivets and shooting/bucking the rest. I ended up quitting with 6 rows of rivets, on each side, still remaining. My riveting was starting to get a little sloppy, so I figured I better quit for the evening before I make any major mistakes.
As with the right side, I squeezed the top two rows and bucked the rest of the rivets.
Interesting Stuff
Help Me Buy Some Rivets
