ATTACHED THE VERTICAL STABILIZER Let’s get it out of the way. It’s a terrible pun. I own that. But I also own an airplane that has BOTH the horizontal and vertical stabilizers attached to the tailcone! At the same time! I am pretty excited about this. I am having a… Read More »Tailcone is stabilized
At long last, I was able to finish my first full part of the plane today. I’d be more excited I think if I didn’t make a mistake. More on that in a bit, but I’ll start with some other points first. I continued to feel pretty confident in my… Read More »Vertical stabilizer – DONE
The first order of business on the night was to drill out my faulty rivet from yesterday. The drilling ended up going quite well, which is what I was most worried about. I didn’t want to over-drill the hole and make it too wide to accept a new rivet. That… Read More »Vertical Stabilizer Assembly
I have to start by glowing once more about how well the priming turned out. Working with all these primed parts has been so easy and I am glad that I waited to dimple until after the priming. I can now see how everyone says it is more difficult to… Read More »Dimples and first rivets
Time to prime at long last! Today was the day that I was waiting for for over 2 weeks. In retrospect I am kind of glad it took this long because it enabled me to finish up all of the pieces for both the vertical stabilizer and the rudder. This… Read More »Priming Party!
Well, let’s start with the disappointing news first. I’m pretty sure the primer (Akzo 463) should be INSIDE the can upon delivery… Yup – confirmed. It should be. I’m not missing any new concepts there. One additional note – this stuff is toxic. It literally smells like cancer. I cannot… Read More »Vertical Stabilizer – Part 3
Not surprisingly, it took a great deal of discipline to go upstairs and unpack my things prior to going out into the garage to work on the plane. But I did and I suppose I’m glad I did. Not the point. On to the plane! It was pretty successful I… Read More »Vertical Stabilizer – Part 2
After all of the excitement of unpacking yesterday, it is nice to move on to what will become the new normal for the next few years – the actual build. Yesterday I was able to start the first few parts of the vertical stabilizer by cutting some aluminum spar caps… Read More »Vertical Stabilizer – Part 1
The empennage kit has arrived! Van’s Aircraft (the company that manufactures the RV-10 kit that I am building) uses Old Dominion to deliver the large crate full of supplies. The first stage is called the empennage, or the back portion of the airplane that includes the vertical stabilizer, rudder, horizontal… Read More »It begins!