I finished all the parts fabrication and drilling this evening for the center section. Now I’m ready to clean, etch, and prime all the parts for the firewall and the center section this week before my trip to Arizona.
Tasks Completed:
We had great weather in Seattle over the weekend for the first time in ages. I worked here and there on the project this weekend so we could all enjoy the outside as much as possible.
Tasks Completed:
Tonight I started marching through all the remaining parts prep. The center section is proving to be quite tedious. There are a bunch of little items to do and you have to pay attention to the plans much more on the fuselage. I am reading the plans over and over to avoid drilling the wrong hole on these parts.
I almost plowed ahead with drilling a third hole in the small cover support rib before really seeing how it goes together. Also Ken Scott confirmed for me that you actually dimple the web of the forward bulkhead. I had initially assumed this would be countersunk! If I can get a good day’s work in later this week, I should be ready to prime the firewall and center section parts as soon as the weather is good.
Tasks Competed:
The F-633 R control mount replacement magically appeared on the front steps today. I promptly went downstairs, drilled and trimmed the part per the plans. Using my drill press this time around yielded a perfect result. I mounted both brackets and test fit the control arms. It all worked perfectly.
Tomorrow I will be drilling and riveting all the nutplates and …
Tasks Completed:
The right side control mount didn’t turn out to my liking. It didn’t sit flat with the bulkhead because the holes are slightly off 90 degrees. I ordered a new part and moved on to riveting the forward bulkhead and arms together. A couple of rivets look suspect. I’ll drill out and redo tomorrow.
Also I spent time with the plans trying to figure out whether to countersink the bulkhead for the web stiffener riveting or dimple it. The bulkhead is .040. Technically for an AD4 rivet the material should be .050 thick. But if I dimple the material I am afraid I will enlarge the hole on the .063 web stiffener angle. Time to write Van’s.
Tasks Completed:
Tasks Completed:
With the size of the prefab’d center sections I just used the air drill to create the 5/8″ wire pass throughs in F704A and B. Actually I made the first one with the airdrill and almost screwed it up because of the high RPMs of the airdrill. I went back to the cordless at lower RPMs combined with some Boelube and got much better results.
Task Completed:
Tonight I started drilling the wire pass throughs in the center section parts. This requires expanding a small hole into a biggerhole using a unibit. I just purchased a benchtop drill press that should help with the smaller parts.
Tasks Completed:
NOTE: The unibit in the drill press worked great except for shaving of a bit of the flange when the unibit got too close. Van’s says, “buff, prime, build on.” So I will.
I went ahead tonight and started gathering all the parts for the center section bulkhed.
Tasks Completed:
