Posts Tagged priming
Left Leading Edge Rib Final Prep (12/3/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Leading Edges, Wings on December 3, 2010
1.3 Hours -
Not much to report tonight. All I did was work on the final prep of the left leading edge ribs. These needed to be deburred, dimpled, scuffed, cleaned and primed.
Yes, another priming picture.
Cleaned and Primed Right Wing Ribs (8/11/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Main Structure, Wings on August 11, 2010
1.5 Hours -
More fun with rib prep this evening. I cleaned the right ribs with soapy water followed by acetone. Then, they were primed with my trusty NAPA 7220 self-etching.
I think the amount of parts I prime is going to be seriously reduced after I’m finished with the ribs. Rather than priming the whole part, I’ll try to stick to just the mating surfaces. Since most of the parts are alclad, all the priming is really overkill…so why am I still doing it!
OK, mini-rant over.
Primed and Started Riveting Left Wing Ribs (8/7/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Main Structure, Wings on August 7, 2010
2.7 Hours -
My work on the plane today was split into two sessions, morning and evening. In the morning, I cleaned and primed the left wing ribs. In the evening, I started to rivet the ribs to the main spar.
Since I had already scuffed the ribs, I only had to clean them up before priming. Since they are relatively small, I decided to wash them with soapy water in the kitchen sink. Once washed, I gave them a final wipe with an acetone soaked rag to make sure any oily residue was removed.
At this point, I had to be very careful to keep the ribs organized. Previously, I numbered the ribs, 1 through 28. A corresponding number on the spar showed the location for the rib. I also put an arrow on the spar to show which way the flange of each rib should be oriented. The markings were made with Sharpie…as good as Sharpies are, they don’t stand a chance to acetone. As soon as each rib was cleaned, I had to be sure to remark the number. As long as I don’t lay on the primer too thick, the numbers should show through.
Once all the ribs were cleaned, I laid them out on some newspaper for priming. It took a lot of primer to get through the 14 ribs. Granted, I think more primer ended up on the paper than on the ribs!
Some of the left wing ribs being primed on my workbench.
A few more ribs on the floor.
After the primer dried, I returned to the garage and started riveting. At this point, all of the ribs get riveted to the main spar except for the outboard rib.
Thanks to recommendations of other builder’s I started with the third rib from the root. Since the wing walk ribs are so close together, it would be difficult, but not impossible, to reach between them and shoot rivets. By starting with the third rib and working to the root, you have space to work.
It’s been awhile since I’ve had to buck and shoot rivets, so I did a few practice rivets to get my touch back adjust the air pressure appropriately. I also decided to try my offset rivet set for the first time. The offset rivet set would allow me to set the rib to spar rivets without having to bend the ribs out of the way. Well, after my first rivet, I quickly switched back to a straight set. I bent over the shop side of the rivet and had to drill it out. Fortunately, this was my only riveting mistake of the evening, but I also only made it through five ribs.
The first rib riveted to the main spar! It's easier if you start with the third rib from the root.
Out of focus, but there are no smiles! Factory heads are, appropriately, on the thinner material.
Shop heads on the spar. The blue tape did a great job of protecting the spar from bucking bar damage.
Wing walk ribs riveted to the main spar. Not much space in between them which is why I started with the third rib.
Prepped and Primed Right Rear Spar (7/14/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Spars, Wings on July 15, 2010
1.0 Hours -
I had a softball game at 7:50 tonight, but managed to put another hour on the build-o-meter before heading off to the game. Working in the hot garage was almost like a warm-up anyway!
The last time I worked on the rear spars, I was having trouble understanding how to rivet W-707F to W-707A. The rivet call outs in the plans were fairly clear except for the outboard most row of rivets. This row will also attach one wing rib to the rear spar, and the outboard aileron bracket also covers it up. What I didn’t realize at first was that this row is the only row that uses countersunk rivets. If I would have realized that the other day, none of this would have been confusing. The aileron bracket is not attached using this row of rivets…it is attached by the row next to it and only covers up the outboard row. Since the aileron bracket needs to rest flush on W-707F, countersunk rivets must be used. With this straightened out in my head, I had to go back and dimple W-707A and F (left and right) appropriately and I’ll have to remember to dimple the outboard rib as well when the time comes.
I realized the left-most row of rivet holes needed to be dimpled after the pieces were primed...oh well, no damage done.
With my confusion out of the way, I went to work on the right W-707A. It is the only piece of the rear spars that I had not yet deburred and primed. The usual mantra ensued: deburr, scotchbrite, clean, prime.
Now that the right rear spar is primed, I can start assembly.
In case anyone is wondering, we lost the softball game after ending the first inning with a 6-0 lead.
Left Elevator Skeleton Ready For Assembly (2/2/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Elevators, Empennage on February 2, 2010
1.2 Hours -
Tonight, I finished deburring and dimpling all of the left elevator skeleton parts. Once deburred and dimpled, it was primer time once again. As usual, I roughed them up with a Scotch-Brite pad, cleaned them with acetone, and sprayed them with NAPA 7220 self-etching rattle can primer.
That's right! More primer. Here, the left elevator skeleton is ready for assembly.
More Right Elevator Skeleton Work (1/21/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Elevators, Empennage on January 23, 2010
2.0 Hours -
Five steps were crossed off the plans this evening. According to Van’s, this is what I did:
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Disassemble the elevator.
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Dimple E-713 for the screw heads that will attach E-714 (See “Dimpling”, Section 5E).
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Machine Countersink E-714 for the dimples in E-713 (See Countersinking”, Section 5E).
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Machine countersink the E-709 attach holes on the forward face of E-702 (See “Countersinking”, Section 5E). E-709 and E-702 will be riveted together with flush head rivets, so that the WD-605-1-R elevator horn can be mounted flush with the forward face of the E-702 spar.
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Bevel the inboard and aft edges of E-713 locally where E-713 overlaps the spar and rib flanges to proved a smooth transition between the counterbalance skin and the E-701-R elevator skin.
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That's right! Another priming picture. Here the right elevator skeleton parts are scuffed, cleaned and ready to be sprayed.
Right Elevator Continued, Left Elevator Started (1/7/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Elevators, Empennage on January 7, 2010
1.8 Hours -
I was able to leave work an hour early today, so I had a little extra time to continue the elevator prep work. First up was to dimple the stiffener attachment holes on the right elevator. My c-frame could reach all but several of the aft-most holes. The c-frame could have been used on all the holes if I had an extra hand to help bend the skin out of the way, but I opted to test out my pop-rivet dimpler instead of waiting.
The pop-rivet dimpler was simple to use and generated nice dimples. However, it also left a small ring around the dimple. This ring will be easy to cover with paint or polish out, but it is an annoyance all the same.
Dimpling the elevator skin finally gave me the opportunity to use my pop rivet dimpler.
The dimple on the left is from the pop rivet dimpler. The right is froma c-frame.
Once the skin was dimpled, I went ahead and primed the inside of the skin where the stiffeners will attach.
Next, I decided to start working on the left elevator. Even though I planned to let the left side sit until the right was done, I started working on it simply to get some of the parts out of the way. I proceeded to final drill all the stiffeners to the left skin. Again, nothing complicated, just time consuming. All of the stiffeners and the skin will have to be deburred and dimpled. I still have to finish the edges on all of the left stiffeners as well.
Final drilling the stiffeners to the left elevator.
In addition to working on the stiffeners, I also final drilled E-615PP to the left elevator skin. This piece serves as a doubler, or reinforcement plate, as well attachment point for the elevator trim access cover.
The trim access panel is reinforced.
Right Elevator Stiffeners Finished 1/4/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Elevators, Empennage on January 5, 2010
0.5 Hours -
No pictures, but the right elevator stiffeners are complete. I spent about a half hour scuffing, cleaning and priming them. My priming routine was changed slightly as well. I ran out of MEK and decided to go with acetone this time. The smell of MEK bothered me so much that I had to wear a respirator. However, the acetone isn’t quite as noxious and, with the garage door open, no respirator is needed. The acetone seems to clean the parts as well as the MEK did, but the real test will be to see if the primer has adhered as well as it did after a MEK cleaning.
After priming the stiffeners, I used my squeezer to dimple any stiffener attachment holes that I could ready in the right skin. There were not very many that were reachable, so the majority will have to be dimpled with a c-frame.
More Rudder Prep (11/29/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder on November 29, 2009
1.5 Hours -
More rudder prep today. I’ve finished just about everything I can until my order from onlinemetals.com arrives.
First, I had to match drill the rudder counterweight to the counterweight rib. Then, I countersunk the weight using my deburr tool. The weight is lead, a very soft metal, so removing material was simple. The rib, however, had to be dimpled and I don’t have a #10 dimple set.
There are not many places where you have to use a #10 dimple die, so buying one would be a bit of a waste of money. Many other builders have made there own, so I followed suit. The female die was made by countersinking a piece of wood. I then dimpled the rib using my #8 dimple die and finished off the dimple by placing a screw through the rib and wood block and tightening a nut until the screw adequately pulled the metal into place around it. The resulting dimple wasn’t perfect, but it will suffice.
A wood block was used to make a #10 dimple die.
Using my homemade #10 dimple die on the counterweight rib.
The counterweight rib is dimpled while the counterweight is countersunk.
Finally, I prepped and primed all of the rudder pieces except for the trailing edge wedge. I still need to countersink both sides of all the holes on the wedge, so priming it will have to wait for another day.
More priming...
A Day of Deburring and Dimpling (11/21/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder on November 21, 2009
4.6 Hours -
Nothing too exciting today.
I spent 2 hours finishing the edges of the right stiffeners, 15 minutes dimpling all sixteen stiffeners with the squeezer, 30 minutes removing protective vinyl from the rudder skins, 45 minutes dimpling the skins with the c-frame, and 66 minutes prepping and priming all these pieces. I’m exhausted!
Tomorrow, my Dad is coming over to help. We’ll back rivet the stiffeners to the skins and start the rudder skeleton.
Another one for the FAA...me dimpling the rudder skins with a c-frame.
A fresh line of dimples in the rudder skin.
16 primed rudder stiffeners.
I primed the inside of the rudder skins where the stiffeners will attach.
Interesting Stuff
Help Me Buy Some Rivets
