Lower Fuselage

Finally time to connect the two halves of the fuselage together! I bolted the two halves together first with the provided spacers and some regular Lowe's bolts, they are temporary anyway. I riveted as much as I could by myself and then my very patient, productive, helpful, enthusiastic, ....oh and good looking friend, Adam, came by to help finish riveting. (I say those things as positive reinforcement so he helps again : ) hope it works) We turned the whole thing on its side to reach both sides. There are a couple rivets that the bucking bar couldn't get to, since they were under the seat support brackets...blinds might go there haven't decided yet. There are six rivets in the skin on the outboard side that go into the bulkhead assembly that need to be double flushed. So the bulkhead needs to be countersunk on the flange, don't know how I'm doing this yet either. I think I need a new tool to do the job.

The stand worked great. It rolls around really easily. I posted more pics as promised.

Since the work table was now free of airplane I decided to build the baby a set of chest-of-drawers that we needed. Started and finished it this past weekend. It's made almost entirely from the wood crating the airplane was shipped in, pretty neat.

There is a picture of the shop using the new panorama option on the iPhone. I had to try it out on something.

23 3.5 riveted fuselage halves
25 1.75 bending longerons
26 1.5 bending longerons

 

RV-10 Fuselage Stand

I drilled out the F-1015 ribs without any damage to the airframe, amazingly. Some rivets are really easy to drill out and some others are tucked away deep inside and going through multiple layers of aluminum. I drilled a #40 hole into the head of the #4 rivets, popped the heads off with a punch, then used the rivet gun against the punch to "hammer" the rest of the rivet out of the hole. This seemed to be the best way to prevent any damage to the airframe.

The entire front half of the lower fuselage is almost complete. I prosealed the skins under the firewall and, what started as an accident, prosealed the splice of the fwd and aft skins. I started prosealing the wrong side of the skin but ran with the mistake anyway, I figured it wouldn't hurt to proseal the first splice aft of the engine and whatever it feels like spewing out.

I also built a stand for the fuselage so I can get this thing off the workbench. I have a single picture right now, after the airplane is sitting on it I'll try and remember to take some more detailed pics.

Also, last weekend we had a trip up to STL to visit family. Solid IFR for about an hour and a half and I kept thinking how synthetic vision will make this so much better, not to mention a functioning autopilot. I gave my wife a little flying lesson on the way up (VFR), since the autopilot wasn't functioning, that was fun and helped pass the time. On our way home we had a monster tailwind and reached 165kts groundspeed, RV-10 speeds!, in a C172.

Date Hrs
16 2.5 Pro sealed skins
17 2.0 found rib problem
18 2.0 drilled out single rib
20 8.0 drilled second rib. Bolted two halves together. Built stand. Bolted more things. Bolted a couple other parts. Riveted seat well tops.
21 4.0 Started bending longerons

Fuselage Frustration

I am working on Section 28 of the plans and started clecoing in place the F-1004K Center Section Side Plate when I noticed I made a big mistake. Back in Section 26 of the plans when I riveted F-1015A Outboard Seat Rib in place I accidently placed the joggled flange of F-1015A outboard of F-1004D Channel when it should be inboard, ie that little tab should be behind the channel.

 So, I have a problem. I first drilled out the 21 rivets on the bottom that go thru the skin. Tried twisting the rib to get the flange behind the channel….didn’t work. So I started brainstorming ways to avoid drilling out the rivets that attach the aft end to the fuselage (they are a pain to get to and was afraid of really screwing up a rivet hole)…I could make a shim above the flange, I could cut the flange and create a “repair” attaching the two parts together…..wait….will the holes need to be dimpled…..wait should all the holes be dimpled in the F-1015A Rib? After scouring the plans and the web I discovered that YES they should! The plans completely skip over this. You dimple F-1018 Rear Seat Rib on step 6 on page 26-5, but there is no mention of F-1015A. A simple “and F-1015” after "dimple holes" is all that would be required. Frustrating.



Apparently you’re also supposed to know to dimple the holes in the F-1015B channel before installing the F-1015A Rib. So, the ribs on both sides are coming out and this would happen regardless of the mistake I made in the beginning.

Back riveting and baby kicks

A lot of time went to installing nutplates and making small assemblies. I did get the stiffening angles back riveted to the lower skin, which seemed like a big step.

I'm getting excited; the two halves of the fuselage will be coming together soon! And, the baby is really starting to kick! Seeing my wife's stomach jump is a pretty wild sight!
(3.25)

Forward Fuselage and Firewall

I've been doing a few other things this past week: a little bit of flying, attended an AOPA meeting, painted the baby's room (due Dec 29th!), among several other small projects around the house. The long weekend allowed for some airplane building time. Thank you Columbus Day.

Since my last post I disassembled the entire forward section and began the deburring and dimpling. I also scuffed and primed the parts.

I decided to not prime some of the interior panels. I think it would be overkill and a wasted effort over parts that will not be exposed to the elements and are clad aluminum anyway.

Today I started final assembly on the Firewall, back riveting the entire thing. As I stated on the previous post I started riveting the F-1043F parts to the bulkheads and will then rivet them together. A slight change in order from the plans.

(Mon 1st 2.0) (Sat 6th 4.0) (Sun 7th 5.0) (Mon 8th 7.0)

Other RV-10 Builders

There is an RV Builders Group here in the Huntsville area but it seems like all the guys are finished building and disinterested in any mentorship with a current builder. There is only one other RV-10 in the area that I know of and he is part of the group, but doesn't attend the meetings and seems to be equally disinterested in answering questions. (A little caveat, one of the guys did give me a ride in his RV-6A with a little bit of flying time...and it was awesome...so I must say a Thank You for that)

Anyway, back to the point, so I peruse through other builders web pages (if your reading this then you do the same) and I came across Brian and Brandi, www.n42bu.com. They are some young RV-10 builders like Jess and I and they live only a short flight away in Atlanta. I shot them an email to say hi and the next thing I know they are flying over to check out my shop and airplane building progress, I'm getting a ton of usefull info, meeting some great new people, and getting my first RV-10 flight! The airplane is everything I hoped, actually it exceeded my expectations! The inside is roomy and comfortable, the speed is outstanding, the controls are solid and responsive. Awesome! Jess and I are excited to not only have met another young couple that flies, but also has built the same airplane we are.

After hanging out for the entire later half of the day all I got was a single picture of my 6 month pregnant wife laughing about trying to buckle the seat belt around her baby belly : )

Thanks again Brian and Brandi!

Forward Lower Fuselage

I've been pretty busy. Im happy with my progress again; after what felt like a little lull in building. I took off last Friday and worked all day on the plane, plus several other nights, that I didn't document so here is the catching up.

- Page 28-2 Step 2 in the RV-10 plans has an entire step that is not required in the new kits. Apparently they changed the fuel lines design and did not update this step; and a few other images I discovered later in the instructions.

- Cut out the middle of the Control Columns. It took a combination of a drill, whiz wheel, sander, and scotch brite pad to make it. See image the before is on the left and the after on the right.

- Had some holes that didn't line up on the F-1043F parts, see images, so like I've been doing on a lot parts I won't be blindly following the instructions. Instead I'm going to rivet these to the bulkheads first and then rivet them together to make it work.

-The entire Fwd Lower fuselage clecoed and drilled.

- Temporarily attached the Aft and Fwd Lower Fuselage halfs together to drill the skins. I had to set the whole thing on its side (RV-10's first right hand 90 degree bank!) to reach the holes.

- Dissamble Fwd half and started deburring.

If you notice the Firewall section is not complete. This is another part where I'm not following the plans in precise order. First, I want to prime as many parts at the same time that I can so I'm waiting for the Fwd Lower Fuselage parts. Second, I wouldn't have been able to set the part on its side without the weight of the firewall twisting everything out of alignment. Third, I think it is easier and faster to execute the same steps on multiple parts at the same time...you just kinda get in the zone. Now all of this does not go without saying that I clearly mark the steps that I complete and will not close out a section as much as possible before proceeding to the next. So in the end NOTHING will be missed.  (Since last post 20hrs)

Ordered Wing Kit

In case you haven't caught on I am building the Fuselage kit before building the wing kit. This order made more sense to me with the tailcone connecting to the fuselage and all. The plan was I could then have the entire bulk of the airplane built and while working on the wings plan for all my avionics. There, so far, has only been one instance were the plans have mentioned something in the wing kit pages that did not have...searched Tim Olson's pages for the reference and moved on, no big deal. I want to continue doing sheet metal work right into the wing kit. I figure this is the most effecient and my skill level would only deminish if I moved away from it and started the later half of the fuselage kit (running fuel lines, brake lines, controls, fiberglass, etc). I want to get the fuselage to the point that a quick build fuselage would arrive in and then attach the tailcone. So with the 8 week lead time the kits have I should be ready about the same time the wing kit arrives.

One issue I found confusing was since I ordered the fuselage first they sent a part numbered W-1006 that normally ships with the wing kit. So they told me when I order the wing kit to just ask that this part be removed. Well I started questioning myself as to what this part actually is, I had a pretty good assumption but I wanted to be absolutely sure. So I called Van's and just as I thought W-1006 is made up of the F-1004 numbers, see their email reply below:


The W-1006 parts are all common to the main wing spar assembly, Under that part number
when you order you also receive all of the F-1004 center section parts.

W-1006 CENTER SECTION                 WING SPAR/FUSE BLKHD
1.000 |F-1004A
1.000 |F-1004B
1.000 |F-1004E
1.000 |F-1004F
1.000 |F-1004G
1.000 |F-1004H
0.200 |{W-1006 SPAR}


Oh, also, I added the Static Port Kit that I should have ordered witht the tailcone and the Float Fuel Sending Unit for the wings.