Aft Fuselage Prime and Assembly June 15 & 17

RV14 Build June 15 & 17

Aft Fuselage

The 15th was an easier day where I assembled the parts that I had already primed.

I started to dimple the next bulkhead and I noticed the primer flaking off around the dimples. I must not have done a good enough job as surface prep so I decide to strip off the primer and respray it. The side that had good adhesion was a pain in the A$$ to get clean off. Which is kinda nice to know that this stuff works so well!

Taping off the holes not to dimple.

I decided by the end of the week I wanted to get the assembly to this page. So next time Ill have to debur, prep, and prime parts.

Back at it on the 17th! The trailing edge 3m tape finally showed up from amazon so I took the first hour and put it on the elevators. I noticed on 1 of them that there was a gab in between the skin and the trailing edge ill need to work with an edge seamer to bend down after the tape cures.

Trailing edge piece all taped up

See the gap where the red line is.

Back to the rear fuselage. So its the same old process now of edge deburring, paint prep, and primer. Matt stopped by for a bit to hangout!

The yaw damper mounting kit showed up, Ive decided to install it now during the build, at least drill the holes now because the access is way better than crawling back into the fuselage after its completed.

Matt making me a saw horse!

Aft Fuselage 13.5 Hours, Elevators 1.0 hours

Aft Fuselage Prep June 12

RV14 Build June 12

Aft Fuselage

Im still waiting on the 3m tape from amazon to finish the trailing edges on the Elevators so Im working on clean more of the metal edges for the Aft Fuselage. Same process as Always, I run the long edges past the 3m wheel and use the embry cloth first 150g then 400g on all the remaining edges. If I can use the Dremel or angle grinder with a 3m pad I will, but its rare that it works out.

More Deburring and edge cleaning.

Parts I still need to do before I prime the next round of parts.

Looking at the plans I could start dimpling and assembling the parts I primed, but I decided to make today just a deburring day. The plans have you dimple the aft bulkhead for flush rivets but they don't say what side needs to be flush! From looking ahead where the Vertical Stabilizer will mount on you want them flush on the rear side.

Aft Fuselage 4.0 Hours

Elevator Assembly June 7

RV14 Build June 7

Elevator Assembly

Made a ton of progress today getting the elevator finished! A buddy from upgrade stopped by and helped, didn't get a picture of him because we were cruising but thanks a ton Matt R!! Not a lot of pictures today either sorry! But basically closed out all the rivets up to the point of ProSealing the trailing edge.

Started to scuff the trim tab and attach the trailing edge, the thin part in the right of the picture, with the tape but I ran out!!! Guess we are done for the day. Next step is ProSeal the wedges and rivet the trailing edges.

Neither Matt nor I could find anywhere in the plans where they have you close the row of rivets on the rear spar bottom skin outboard side after you no longer need access. We both read through the directions to the end of the Elevator and couldn't find it???? I made an executive decision that since I had help to rivet the rear spars after everything else was done, hope this doesn't bite me later!

Elevator 9.5 Man Hours - Yeah for Help!!

Elevator Assembly June 5

RV14 Build June 5

Elevator Assembly

Today I am installing the Front Spar Assembly into the Elevators. Getting at the 2 pop rivets in the rear of the elevators wasn't possible without first modifying one of the Pop Riveters. I followed the instructions in the EAA video for pulling pop rivets in tight spaces. You basically grind one of the pop rivet pullers on an angle so you can hold the tool on an angle and give you more room to work.

The first rivet went in well! The modified tool seemed to work well, should have done this for the rudder, Oh well, now I know for when I rebuild it.

Im ready to install the Front Spar, or so I thought. Turns out I missed 2 rivets on each assembly that I had to shoot first!

Now thats done I can start to rivet the Front Spars in. I started to deviate from working them both at the same time and just focused on finishing the Left Elevator at this point. The plans had several lines of rivets on the skins and rear spar to leave open so you can have access later.

Leaving the line of rivets open on the bottom skins give you access to the top skin to shoot the 2 red arrow rivets, The plans say you can use pop rivets, but it wasn't that had to shoot them. The 3 blue marked rivet holes are longer than the rest of the Elevator Rib Tip Flange.

After you are done with the Shear Clips  and 2 red arrows from above you don't need access anymore and start to close the skins up the rest of the way.

Elevators 4.0 Hours

Elevator Assembly June 3

RV14 Build June 3

Elevator Assembly

Continued to work on the Elevators today, Matt came to the shop and helped out!! We started by finishing attaching the top skins to the ribs and then moved onto the Left Elevator Trim Tab Access Reinforcement Doubler. I used the back rivet plate for most of this.

The plans have you make a special bucking bar to get between the elevator skins and reach the rear spar, just buy it from Cleveland tools and save the headache. 

Bucking these rivets seemed like it would be CRAZY hard for 1 person so I am super glad Matt was here today to help!

2 Mostly completed elevators!! I just need to install the front spar assemblies, ProSeal the trailing edge wedges, and rivet the trailing edge together. I think maybe 20 more hours??

Elevators 9.0 Man Hours - Yeah Help Today

Elevator Assembly June 1

RV Build Build June 1

Elevator Assembly

I started off thinking I was gonna ProSeal the Elevator Trim Tab, but then I realized the 3.5oz size of ProSeal was not something I could mix in small batches and would have to be mixed all together so i put this part off until the elevators where ready to seal as well.

I decide to start with the left elevator rear spar and ribs. For some reason I couldn't find a good angle to get the squeezer on the ribs to spar rivets and had to shoot them. My skills in tight spots still need work, I missed up the primer. But on the plus side the primer does appear to be much more resilient than the old stuff I was using.

You can see the primer messed up on the ribs near the rivet heads.

After I had all the ribs installed in the left and right elevators I started to attach the skin to the front spar and rivet the spar and ribs to the Top Skin.

Although the skins are really beat up from getting moved around and scuffed I am still putting tape down to protect the area around the rivet heads from scuffing when shooting rivets.

Next three pictures are how I had the front spar set up on the bench to rivet.

Elevator 4.5 Hours