Aft fuselage Skin Assembly July 20

RV14 Build July 20

Aft Fuselage

It was well over 100 degrees today in the shop but I have some amazing friends who came over and helped me rivet on the upper side and top skins on the Aft Fuselage! Im so glad I had there help to get this done, now I "Should" be able to finish this kit on my own as far as reaching all the parts goes!

Just A lot of awkward movements to get the bucking bar on the rivet heads but nothing too crazy!

I put a bunch of old boxes down to lay on so I wouldn't stab my back or hit the airframe.

Just need to get my parts in to remove the aft bottom skin and bulkhead rivet that all together and this sections will be all but done!

Aft Fuselage Man Hours 4.0

Horizontal Stabilizer Mistake fix Idea July 20

RV14 Build July 20

Horizontal Stabilizer

So a quick reminder of what I did here. Basically the front and rear spar have an up and down and I flipped 1 of them, Im choosing to say that I flipped the front one. I thought I had 3 different ways to fix it, but the rear spar support bars run at an angle, so the spar is not symmetrical and the rear down has to be the down, and this knocks out one of my potential fixes.

What my plan is now. Relocate the mounting holes for the front spar and drill them exactly. I measured the hole edge to the bottom of the spar, then measured the whole spar. I figure what Im trying to do is mirror the hole location so I took the distance of the bottom edge hole to lower edge of the spar and added the radius to it, this gave me the distance from the center of the hole to the bottom edge. In theory since the holes are going to be mirrored its the same distance from the top edge to the center of the whole I want to drill. So if i double that distance and subtract it from the total spar width I would be left with the distance from the center of 1 hole to the center of the other, then I added the radius again and that should be the distance from the top of the hole I have to the center of the one i need to drill. I cross checked that location with edge of hole to bottom of spar distance mirrored on the top and everything was in the same place. So i feel comfortable I found it vertically. Luckily for me there is a rivet line and the edge of the rivets corresponds to the center of the hole I want to drill so locating the hole horizontally was a little easier. Drill the 1 hole and then use the bulkhead as a template for the second hole by match drilling.

As I was writing this I had another idea, buy the doubler cut it to size flips its orientation so up is down and use the 4 vertical stabilizer bolts holes to mount the doubler to the spar and then use the holes in the double to locate the holes in the spar and match drill!! Way easier. 

Aft Fuselage and Elevator Mistake fixing July 15

RV14 Build July 15

Aft Fuselage

I received the new tools that I was waiting on to try and fix my mistakes on the elevator and the aft fuselage. The title mistake fixing is a bit of a misnomer, attempted mistake fixing might be better.

I started right in with the middle tool the 1/8 close quarter dimple die from Cleveland tools. They didn't work for what i was trying to do. This Aft Fuselage skin in thick and the pul rivet style of the dimple broke the shaft before setting the dimple. Then I thought why don't I drill it to size and place the dies around the hole and shoot and buck them like a rivet. This worked really well to make dimples!! The problem was I didn't clean up the holes well enough and upon inspection they were cracked in the dimple. I decide to drill out the whole bottom aft skin and reorder it as well as the bulkhead because those dimples cracked too. Lesson here...DEBURR better.

Cracks in the bulkhead dimple

I thought about reusing the Horizontal Stab attaching bars, but they were only $11 so I ordered new ones to match drill and assemble the bulkhead together.  Ill save these as spare metal/Parts.

On the left side lower stiffener my rivet drilling, which caused this can of worms in the first place, bit me again. So I ordered that as well. I think Im going to trim the stiffener and make a double and rivet it onto of the other instead of risking more damage by drilling out the stiffener the rest of the length.

The end result....Moving backwards today.

Elevators

The dimple die for the holes in the elevator trim motor access panel worked great! Finally a victory today. All i need to do is put the pins on the wires and into the molex connector and the elevators will be done!

Just kidding, I didn't know how to use the crimper and messed up the pins, new ones on order.

All in today cost my 4.5 hours and $120 in new parts. So much learning, this is what Im calling mistakes now....I need a beer.

Aft Fuselage 4.0 Hours, Elevators 1.5 Hours

Aft Fuselage July 12 & 13

RV14 Build July 12 &13

Aft Fuselage

Spent maybe 30 mins riveting together the Elevator Trim tab motor bracket, but the rest was all on the aft Fuselage. Mostly installing the rest of the systems and cables and riveting on the side skins. Im still waiting on the tools to do close quarter dimpling to fix the elevator trim motor mounting #27 holes I forgot to dimple and the #30 holes that Im going to match drill to enlarge in the second to last bulkhead since my sloppy drilling of rivets oblonged the holes.

 Trim motor bracket mounting plate.

Aft Fuselage systems installed!

 Static Lines

Rudder cables and cable guides

Cleaning, etching, and priming the last parts of this kit!!

Last wipe down with rubbing alcohol before spraying!

Time to install some of these skins! I jumped ahead in the plans a little. I can't install the aft deck until i fix the holes for the second to last bulkhead and reinstall that. My buddy Matt has been coming over to work with me while he sits on call, I can't tall you how nice it is to have a helping hand!!! Thank you Matt!

1 top side skin riveted on 1 to go!

Side skins are coming on nicely, just have to rivet the second top side skin, top skin, and finish the Aft deck area!

This thing is really looking like an airplane!

Aft Fuselage 24 Man Hours!!

Fuselage Ordered July 10

RV14 Build July10

Fuselage Kit

I ordered the fuselage kit today, well technically I canceled the wing kit and ordered the fuselage kit. Building this thing mostly solo the scale of the project and timeline is weighting on me. For now I have decided to build the fuselage kit and order the quick build wings to save some time. I want to get this out of the shop space and into the air sooner! Also, the time commitment makes me feel like my life is on hold while Im building. Your hobbies shouldn't be a central cause of stress in your life Im told. I feel much better about this decision and in the future if I want to build the wings its still an option.

Aft Fuselage Assembly July 9 & 10

RV14 Build July 9 & 10

Aft Fuselage

Bill came out the first day to help with the riveting and we really got into a groove! I got a little hung up on the Aft lower skin and tail wheel mount. It was a tight space and just hard to work in. Later the next day this same area became a MUCH bigger issue.

Bill helped me get all the harder to reach rivets!

Now for the latest mistake/ stressor. This is the tail wheel mount and the aft bulkhead. The mount pops out of the rear of the aircraft through that notch on the bottom of the bulkhead. Well after I had riveted it in I noticed that I didn't cut the bulkhead notch big enough and it was rubbing on the weld bead of the tail wheel mount.

I was trying to go for the easier fix and cut the notch larger while everything was in place, like most times that I take this road I ended up causing more damage than I solved and I still had to do the "correct" fix and drill out the bulkhead in front of the rear out and remove the tail wheel mount to paint the areas that the power coating was taken off from my attempts to grind the bulkhead. But it gave me the access to make the notch larger.

 The mount sits down in that opening in the bottom aft skin in the right of the picture.

Larger opening on the left side of the notch.

In the process of drilling out the bulkhead, I was rushing like a dummy, I made the rivet holes larger!

So now the ones that are circled are going to become 1/8 rivets instead of 3/32. I ordered a close quarter dimple die to dimple the skin. Luckily the edge distances are all of to go to the larger rivets. As you can imagine I was feeling VERY low at this moment. The scope and size of the project felt crushing. I decided to rivet the rest of the skin up to the second to last bulkhead to feel like I accomplished something.

Aft fuselage 7.0 Hours

Aft Fuselage Assembly July 8

RV14 Build July 8

Aft Fuselage

New tool!! Smaller yoke so hopefully I can fix the holes I forgot to dimple in the elevators and can officially call those done. Fingers crossed it works!

 See how much small it is! Hopefully it will fit into that tight space

Back a few days ago I decided it would be a good idea to prime the lower skin when the side skins overlapped. I think that was a good plan, just poorly executed! I didn't remove all of the etch because it seeped under the tape and then dried and your not suppose to let it do that, turns out thats because it will continue to etch the metal and start what looked like surface corrosion. So I rewetted the area with etch per the instructions and cleaned it off VERY well this time, scotch brite the areas that looked like they needed it and primes. I just used a rattle can for this, because the part of the primer that isn't covered by the side skins I wanted to be easier to remove when it came time to paint.

Ok, now that old mistakes are taken care of for the day on to new business. Dimpling the side skins, assembling the aft fuselage and mocking in the electrical, Which I ran down the wrong channel! Lucky i noticed before I finished riveting everything together the next day.

Trying to make sense of the cable bundles and where they go in the plans!

Starting to look like an Airplane!

I think I have everything mocked up

View from the back

Turns out this is where I was suppose to run the cables, lucky I caught this before finishing riveting.

Just really like this picture!

Aft Fuselage 10 Hours