Painting and riveting

I have been working on the bird. Got a lot of the interior pieces etched, alodined and painted. I still have the floor boards to do. I have one last panel to fit up then cut the holes in the for the sticks and I will be done with floor boards.
Then I will etch, alodine and paint those. I have purchased the sound proofing that will go on the bottom skins to help eliminate exhaust noises and vibration. Remember, this is going to be a cross country machine so it has to be nice and smooth.
Once I get all of the floor panels sound proofed, then I can rivet the floor boards in place. I also have to paint the lower seat belt harness attachments. These actually get painted the gray interior color.
I will mask them off when I go to paint the interior. But they are buried under the floor boards and stick up through them so I have to get them done now.
When all of the floor boards are done, I will go back and install all of the nutplates that go in the baggage area and the stick covers. Then I will get back on the tail and fab up the strobe light mounting plate and rear fuselage turtledeck stringers.

One more thing...

I forgot to mention that on the RV-6 there is a gillion nutplates in the baggage and floor boards. I will be spending a better part of the week just installing nutplates.

Fabbing up inner fuselage parts

Haven't posted in a while. That's because I have been busy getting a lot of the parts and pieces that go inside the fuselage fabbed up.
So far, I have gotten the seats, floorboards, baggage compartment panels, seat backs, center section stiffeners, ELT bracket and misc parts all fabbed up to the painting stage.
My next task is to etch, alodine and epoxy prime all these parts. I can then rivet them together and get them out of the way for now.
I still have the right front floor board to fit. This is the ramp under your legs and where the stick comes up through the floor. This panel must fit nicely against the fuselage side wall and around the center sections. If you don't take your time, and you have big ol' gaps around the edges, it will look like crap and air will blow up through them. On a cold day, you will figure out real fast where the air is leaking in on you. 30 degree air blowing on you is a wake up call when you are trying to warm up.
I am taking my time and getting everything to fit real nice. It looks good too and it will keep dirt and dust from getting down into the lower compartments.
I also ordered some sound proofing/ heat barrier. It dampens the exhaust noise and vibration way down. With noise cancelling headsets and the barriers, you can enjoy your flight without getting vibrated out of your seat. My last RV-6 had these as well and it really makes a difference in cockpit comfort. With my fancy seats and upholstery, it will be a very nice interior.

My next step after getting all of these parts primed will be to complete the work on the rear turtledeck and stringers. I will have to get all of the tail section down out of the shed and start mounting it on the tail. I want to get all of the push pull tubes completed before I rivet on the top deck. Once this is done, I will get the skins out and start to back drill all of those panels. There is going to be A LOT of shimming on this deck due to the previous posts about the bulkheads not being in the correct positions. I will make it work and look good. It is just a lot of work......

Back in the saddle again!

I have been putting in some long days building on the airplane. I am back working on the rear fuselage area. I am putting all of the parts that can go in the baggage area and rear tail cone before I put the top turtledeck on. I want to minimize the crawling in and out of the tailcone as much as possible. Last airplane I was in and out a thousand times.

I discovered a pretty big error on the bulkhead station F-607 and F608. The top of the bulkhead does not line up with the baggage bulkhead or the rear bulkhead F-609. When I put a straight edge across the tops of the bulkheads, F-607/8 where about 1/4 inch lower than the other two. Usually you can move the bulkhead forward or backwards a little in the tailcone to get the fit you need. I had to cut the tops off and move them up! I made splice plates and new stiffener brackets so it all fits together again. When I had the bulkheads in the jig I moved these two forward from their "stations" according to plan to get them to fit. Now I created another problem but there is nothing I can do except just what I am doing. Bash to fit, paint to match.

I am almost finished with this job. Then I can run the two stringers on the top and start back drilling the top skins. I still am going to mount the ELT plate inside and fit the Horz stab/elevators so I can make the torque tube all having access with an open working area in the tail cone. Once this is done, I will rivet the top skins in place.

It's been a while......

I have not posted in almost 6 months!
Life has taken me is too many other directions. I have had a promotion at work which occupies my time about 50-60 hrs a week.
I took on my Dad's 180hp Pacer for the summer and flew it around while completing all the final detail work on it that he didn't finish during the restoration.
I have been working around the homestead as well, pouring concrete, building a perimeter fence and making repairs as needed.
The airplane project is getting fired up again now the weather has started to turn. Fall is here and the rain is starting to come. When the grass quits growing, it will be nice.

The next week or so I have to pick the pieces where I left off. I need to order a rivet squeezer yoke for the pneumatic squeezer. I am going to start on the rear baggage compartment bulkhead and work my way back before I close up the rear turtledeck. This will include installing the tail and push/pull tube. I learned on the last one that crawling in and out millions of times is not worth it. Plus its easier to assemble parts standing up then laying on your back........

Doing a lot of small jobs

It's been a month since the last post. Now that the fuse is out of the jig, I have been getting a lot of clean up jobs done before I can tackle the next big job which is mount the horz stab.
I have squeezed all the rivets on the longeron that I could not get at when the fuse was in the jig.
The front floor board attachments are all done and riveted up.
I then constructed a rear tail fixture to hold the tail up level and keep the plane from tipping over while I'm working on it.
I installed the static ports in the side fuselage. They are Cleaveland's and are nice units to Pro-Seal in place.
I Pro-sealed all along the bottom wing/fuselage to keep water from seeping in under the seat pan ribs.
The elevator bellcrank is complete along with the spacers. I have drilled the 1/4 bolt through the rib and bulkhead.
I have installed the Tru-Trak servo mount for the elevator and put together the pushrods.
I also have been working on the rear baggage bulk head and all the little parts that rivet up to the bellcrank mount.
My next area is the rear tail. I have to get the rear deck mounted up but there is a lot of work with small angles and brackets to attach the horz stab. It will take several long days to get that all installed.
Then I can mount the small bulkhead in front of the horz stab and work my way forward in constructing the top deck.
I want to get as much done before I put the deck on so I don't have to crawl back into the rear fuselage.

She's out of the jig

Well, after two days of marathon riveting with the Old Man, we have gotten the airplane out of the jig. She looks pretty good, although, I don't think I got as good as job as the last RV-6 you seen in the blog. I used some dimple dies that were made from Cleaveland tool and there are actually a little too big. The dimple or male part of the die is made too big and thus the rivet is set farther down in the hole. I got a set a while back after breaking my old pair of dies. They sent me out another set and it was noticeably bigger. I called them and they sent out another set that "looked OK". I made the mistake of using it on several skins before really setting any rivets from that die. The second set is still bigger than the set I got from Avery. Cleaveland tool has already has good products so I don't know what happened to their dies but I am not getting the smoothest set of bucked rivets on my bird as the last one. I am going to order another set from Avery for the top skins and boot cowl. I am not going to use the Cleaveland dies anymore.
Another thing that we had problems with is the hole size. Since the dies were too big, when you dimpled the skin, it made the hole too big. Then the rivet did not fill the hole up. If you did not get a perfect set on the rivets, the head would be offset in the dimple slightly.


I have ordered some more tools and 3/32 drill bits to start in on the top skins. Most of this stuff is being overly picky. My work is a good or better then the quick build kits, so it will look good when it's all painted. But.......


The other part I did not like was using the J-stringers. I used .063 angles on the last airplane and they make the skin lay down a little smoother and straighter than the stringers. It's more weight and shimming, but it looks good when it's all done.


I will use the heavier stringers on the top of the fuselage. For now, I have to start adding all of the parts to the back of the tail  section........It's amazing how many parts are still left to install.


One damn job after another....

Getting ready for the big rivet!

The last several weeks have been preparing all of the fuselage skins for riveting.
Anyone that has built or is building an airplane the is made of metal, knows this process.
It's long, boring and sometimes mind numbing. However, it has to be done.
I have been deburring holes until I can't see straight. Then you have to make sure all the skin edges are shaved so there are no burs on the edge. Any part of the skin that is overlapping another skin has to be rolled slightly so it does not pucker when it's riveted.
Then you have to dimple all the skins. Same goes for the fuselage frame but any part that is too thick to be dimpled has to be countersunk. It has to be over countersunk because the dimple in the skin is bigger than the actual rivet. So this means you have to make a dimple in a test strip of metal and use it as a gauge. I countersink all the parts and check the hole with my gauge to make sure the dimpled skins will lay flat up against the framework.
I had to have my minion help me with the dimpling of the skins since they are so long and flexible. They last about two minutes and start the whining process.........which I can remember from my days of being a minion when my Dad was building RV-3/4's. "Are we done yet?"
Next comes priming all the parts and pieces. I still have some old DTM epoxy primer from the last RV-6. It's OK but I can't get rid of these small specs in the primer. I cleaned everything, etched, alodined and then tack rag off all the parts. But when they get sprayed, there is small "dust" looking particles in the paint. If I rattle can the parts, they look great. So I know it's in the primer, not my technique.
However, since all of this is going to be covered up, it does not really matter.
I then have to rivet some of the parts onto the skins prior to riveting them to the fuselage. The floorboard stiffeners had to be back riveted on.
Now I can start riveting from the back tail skin forward. This was done and now the rear side skins are next. I had to shim the side skins back near the tail since your bottom tail skin is .040 thick. Everywhere around this skin is shimmed to the overlapping side skins lay down flat and don't have big puckers everywhere. It would look really bad to smash all this down as I have seen on some jobs.
Once I get myself riveted out of the two back bays, I can start back riveting the skins and make some quick process.
My Dad is coming up and HE is going to be MY minion for two days while we rivet this thing together and birth it out of the jig!!!!!!!! Yeah! How times change things around.......

Still working away...

I have been working on getting all the skins prepped for riveting. This takes a lot of time to debur, dimple and then prime all the skins. I have been at it for about three weeks off and on to get the job done. All but two skins are done and they only need to be primed. After that is done, I will start making some shims for riveting. Even with all the care that is taken to make the skeleton parts fit properly, you need shims to make the skins come out some when they are overlapping another part.
The tail is the worst place as you have a .040 tail cone skin that has to mate up to the side skins. Almost all of the back tail area is shimmed out to have a smooth skin appearance. If you just riveted it all together, it would look really bad. I have seen some jobs where the skins are all puckered. I am not having that on my bird......
A lot of the front fuselage is countersunk for the dimples in the skin due to the thickness of the bulkheads and stringers. I countersunk thousands of holes and had to recharge my drill batteries multiple times. Shavings everywhere......


I will get some pics posted of the progress for priming, then its finally off to some actual progress of putting parts on for good. Once all the skins are on, that fuselage can come out of the jig......yeah!