Step "Crack"

 

I found a crack in my RH step....well more of an "un-welded" spot. I sent an email to Van's to see what they suggest, I suggest a new step but that's my opinion. We'll see.

 

Vans Aircraft,

I am currently building my RV-10 and was looking at my steps when I noticed a small "crack" (not really a crack more of an opening where the two tubes aren't fully welded). I thought the crack might just be superficial so to get a better look I polished the weld (NOTE the "crack" was found before I started polishing the weld) and found that it indeed runs deep. The "crack" is about 0.7" in length and at it's widest point about 0.02" in width. I don't know if a new step is required, but I would not feel comfortable using this one as is.

UPDATE 7/7/13
Vans paid for shipping back to them to reweld the step. The step has been shipped and have not heard anything yet.

UPDATE 7/15/13

Van's deemed the step a "defective part and it could not be repaired" so they sent me a new one, no charge, and it looks much nicer than the original.  

Pitot, Lower Skins, and a Fuel Tank

It's been productive around here...I really want to finish these wings.
Tue 18th  - 1.5hrs - Started aileron actuation section, cut and drilled long pushrods
Wed 19th - 1.25hrs - Drilled RH lower skins
Fri  21st   - 2.5hrs - "Deburr Party" deburred all lower wing skins
Sat 22nd  - 5.5hrs - worked on pitot mount, worked on pushrods
Sun 23rd  - 6.5hrs - Primed parts, installed RH Fuel Tank, riveted pitot mount, worked on push rods

Total time for this post = 17.25hrs 

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My Dynon stuff arrived! It was like Christmas in June.

I received the heated/AoA pitot tube, it's controller box, the autopilot roll servo, mounting bracket and wiring kit. Everything look to be of very high quality. Really nice pieces of equipment....good job Dynon!

The servo just has 7" or so of wire coming from it, nothing has a connector installed. So my first order of business, with my new avionic,s was to install the connector on the servo and on one end of the wire bundle. The wire bundle will run down the conduit I installed in the wing and therefore one end of the wires need to remain without a connector installed to fit through the conduit. Having never installed a connector and it's pins before I recruited Mike, a coworker and friend of mine who happens to be an electrical engineer dealing with avionics integration everyday, for help. So I walked down the hall to Mike's office for a lesson on pinning connectors. Turns out it's really easy and we finished the job on our lunch break.        

No problems installing the connectors to the servo.

Drilled out the RH lower skins.

Installed the RH Fuel Tank.

 

Friday night the wife and I had a "Deburr Party", yep it's what you think it is, you stand around and deburr wing skins into the wee hours of the night. Of course the party can't get started until the baby is sleeping. Grab the monitor and sneak out to the shop, she'll never know we were gone : ). We finished all of the lower skins in a single night!

I got a lot of the aileron actuation section complete as well. I cut and primed the push/pull rods and attached the ends, which I etched and alodined, looks nice.

 

 

I needed to mount the pitot controller near the pitot tube so I made a mounting plate to attach to the rib. It rivets into place using four 470AD4 rivets which minimizes the size of the holes cut into the rib. The controller then screws into place using four #6 screws into the nutplates. There are two angles attached to the back to stiffen the plate and provide attachment points for Adel clamps to hold the pitot and AoA lines and wiring. The power wires run from the bottom of the controller and are held in place by an Adel clamp mounted on a spacer to the hole on the lower side of the mount (LH side of the picture below). More pics of the installation will come later when I get everything finished up.

Here is the single picture I have of the install more pics will follow when I finish up the wiring and such...kinda looks like a mess right now.

Finished Flaps and Other Stuff

I finished up the flaps on Saturday. These were a really easy build and they look great. I riveted the trailing edges with proseal and with the rivets altering directions, facing up, facing down, facing up.... I did this to prevent any warping in the part during riveting. (I also did this on all the other trailing edges I have made, so nothing new). I laid some blankets down inside the fuselage and stored them in there for now.

Saturday June 15th - 4.25hrs - Finished Flaps, Riveted trailing edges.
Sunday June 16th - 5.25hrs - drilled skins, pitot tube mount, drilled holes for pitot lines, installed fuel tank

Finished Flaps Total Time = 26.25hrs

I installed the LH Fuel Tank yesterday, RH will come later. This was easier than what I thought it was going to be. I imagined lots of sweat and grunting to be required, but everything lined up really well. I first spaced them up using boards underneath the jigs they were sitting in and then after lining up the first hole I inserted a cleco into the nutplate to hold that end. I then raised the other end and did the same. I few more clecos and everything was lined up. Then I started installing the 56(?) screws...there were a lot.

I drilled out the LH skins and I got some help marking holes I drilled. Then we did the big cleco migration, where every cleco moves over one hole, to final drill the unmarked hole it was previously installed in.

 

 

 

The pitot/AoA lines are installed. I am using the Pitot/Static kit from SafeAir1. It provides tubing, connector, etc for cheaper than if you buy the stuff seperately (trust me I researched it). The tubing is nylon and can withstand -40F to 200+F, very durable. I had to drill new feed through holes for the green line, which will be my pitot line. The blue line will be my AoA line and I used the existing feed throughs made per the plans.

 

 

I worked on my pitot mast installation. I am using the Gretz pitot mast kit to install the Dynon pitot. The instructions for the install are decent, but it leaves a lot up to you, which was fun.

I used an old rib part I messed up on to scavenge an angle bracket.

Here are the 2 main parts. The angle bracket and the backing plate. (Note: This pic was post drilling, the parts don't come with holes)

 

I match drilled the backing plate to the spar first, removed it, then clecoed the skin in place. Reclecoed the plate to the spar on the outside of the skin and with the angle bracket clecoed to the spar I match drilled through the plate, skin, and bracket at the same time.

A picture with the parts clecoed in place. The skin will install over this.

I am installing in the third bay from the wing tip on the outboard rib.

More Flaps

The upper flap skins are completely riveted on and the lower skins are attached to the spar. You have to pull the skins apart and slide your hand into the flap, like a glove, to hold the bucking bar for the spar rivets. The leading edge ribs are blind rivets which makes for quick and easy work on those. The rest of the lower skin rivets are blind rivets, so that'll be nice. Next step is the trailing edge and that means more ProSeal...yay. Almost done though, I expect to finish these up this weekend. My Pitot/Static lines showed up on my doorstep yesterday, just in time for this weekend. Maybe I can get those installed as well.

Tuesday June 11th - 1.5hrs -  Back Riveted upper skin, riveted flap lower skin and leading edge
Wednesday June 12th -  0.75hrs - (My Wife's Bday!)  Finished riveting leading edge

Flaps Work

I deburred the flap skins and applied a small bend on the trailing eges of all the skins to help the edges lay flat after riveting. Deburring seemed to be taking forever so I recruited Jess to speed things up. After all was deburred and dimpled I clecoed the leading edges and skins on the skeloton frame and started riveting. So far so good and moving along nicely.

Sunday June 9th - 4.75hrs  All Flap Work
Monday June 10th - 1.25hrs  All Flap Work

Skins clecoed in place.

First line of rivets set.

Both Flap Upper Skins are complete, except the aft two rivets which are back-riveted.

The baby inspecting the work.

Tested the Fuel Tanks

Tested the Fuel Tanks....and they passed. No leaks! and look how nice they are waving "Hi" to me like that.

I used the fuel tank test kit from Van's aircraft which at first appearance I thought was nearly useless. It came with three parts: an air port, a cap, and a plug. Only one of those three fit onto the tank. "Well that sucks how do I plug the holes?" So I called Brian and Brandi and asked them to dig back into their memory banks when they tested their fuel tanks. Well, Brandi asked if I had installed the Fuel Strainer onto the tank....Nope...that's what I was missing. Thanks Brandi! So with the air port screwed into the drain and the cap screwed onto the the Fuel Strainer. I then tie-wrapped a glove (lacking balloons) onto the vent port and filled the tank with air until the "balloon" inflated. I sprayed with soapy water and inspected for bubbles and then did it again just to be sure and didn't find anything!

Saturday June 8th 1.0hrs

 

 

 

The Friendly Fuel Tank

 

 

 

I did find one "leak" around the fuel strainer cap, but that's ok it's just coming off anyway.

Started Flaps

So it's been a while since my last post, but I've been busy.

We flew up to St. Louis again to visit the family over Memorial Day weekend. The flight was great despite the headwind there and back. It was severe clear without a cloud in sight the entire flight to St. Louis.

Jess does a great job entertaining and caring for the baby while we fly. Playing, looking at books, and even changing diapers in flight. Luckily Ayla sleeps most of the flight.

 

 

The parts for the car arrived so I spent the large part of last weekend installing a new water pump (the shiny part in the middle of the picture) and timing belt. This included removing the serpentine belt, pulleys, engine mounts, covers, right front wheel, timing adjustments...... I'm glad it's done.

 

 

I've still been able to find time to work on the plane. The flaps are officially started and probably more than half complete by now. The work has been sporadic and therefore didn't justify making a post about. Then I realized that I've completed quite a bit and lacked on posting. So here is me catching up.

 

The progress in summary:

Clecoed all the parts together and drilled everything out as usual. I countersunk rivet holes for two nutplates. Deburred, dimpled, and riveted all the parts in the lower picture to build the "skeleton" of the flaps. I still need to deburr and dimple the skins. The flaps so far are extremely easy without any frustrations or gotcha moments. I expect to finish them soon. I still need to test the fuel tanks so I guess that's coming up as well......I seem to be procrastinating on that task.

 

Total time since last post = 13.75hrs all on Flaps