Pictures don’t do it a great deal of justice because the dimples appear to be WAY more warped than they are. These skins actually feel almost flawless – I’m certainly happy with how this surface is turning out. I have now finished all of the forward spar flange rivets and… Read More »Guess what!?! More riveting
Today I had to use the phrase, “Hey babe – will you come here and help me find out where I’m bleeding from?” Yup. Picture below. Some some blood pooling on the manual (and I spared you the image of the larger section – this is just to give you… Read More »Riveting like a madman
I have begun one of the most significant sections I have come across yet on the plane and that is the completion of the horizontal stabilizer. I knew that there were going to be a lot of rivets because I spent so much tie drilling, deubrring, and dimpling all of… Read More »Dimple and rivet the horizontal stabilizer
Once again, not a terrifyingly exciting evening, but one that definitely saw some progress. I was able to spend several hours out just dimpling and getting all of the parts ready to go for final assembly. I also spent a good deal of time just reading the manual making sure… Read More »Dimpling the horizontal stabilizer
Here we go again with the primer! I think we are getting pretty good at it though. Still some problems to work through with measuring cups and dispensing from the cans, but so far it is going well. We have also trimmed the time down from marathon sessions to something… Read More »Priming once again
I think I will have built this plane three times over before I’ve actually completed it the first time. I had the entire HS clecoed together, match drilled, and ready to roll, except of course that it wasn’t riveted together. So naturally you have to take it all apart, deburr… Read More »Horizontal stabilizer deburring
Unfortunately it has been a while since I have made significant progress on the plane, but sometimes life gets in the way I suppose. It has been a busy travel week for work and also a stretch of inhumanely hot and humid weather that made it tough to work out… Read More »Horizontal stabilizer match drilling
Through the help of my dad (Prime King) we were able to divide and conquer a lot of work today. He was able to help me prime all the parts that attach to the two main spars of the horizontal stabilizer (doublers, etc.) and get them ready to rivet together.… Read More »Priming and assembly
Before I left town for my family reunion out in West Virginia, my great uncle Ronnie called to let me know that a guy he knows (and he knows EVERYONE in that county so that doesn’t narrow it down) built his own airplane and he’d like to take me over… Read More »Checking out a finished RV
I am incredibly lucky that my parts came this morning already. Next day service?!? I’ll take that! Thanks Van’s! I wasn’t counting on being able to get this done before I left for a long weekend for a family reunion. But here we go! For as frustrated and deflated as… Read More »Horizontal stabilizer done right