Matt’s RV7 Build Log

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:

• Riveted F704A,C, and D together.

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:

• Drilled wire pass throughson F704A and B
• Clecoed 704 assemblies together

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:

• Drilled F704C and D wire pass-throughs

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.

 

Today I was going to prime the left side parts but decided to go ahead and complete the riveting on the right elevator. Everything worked out well. When I do the left side I will be waiting to rivet 704 and 703 together until I get the short rib to the spar thereby avoiding the squeezer gymnastics needed to get all the rivets squeezed in that joint.

There’s two items I need to investigate further. First, Van’s came out with the soft rivet bulletin this weekend. Although I am not affected by their apparent mishap, it got me thinking that I had bought some rivets locally early on before knowing the difference between soft and hard rivets. And, just tonight, it felt like a few of the rivets were VERY easy to squeeze. The other thing I need to check on is the quality of my trailing edge bend. It seems like it needs a little more massaging in the middle sections to reduce some bowing I see. Work is going to kill me over the next couple of weeks so I might not get a lot more done on the elevators in November.

Tasks Completed:    

• Finished riveting the right elevator skeleton
• Riveted 701 skin to right elevator skeleton

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