Aft Fuselage

RV 14 Build August 10 & 27

Aft Fuselage

Been moving slow this August getting the airplane built. Seems like I keep making little mistakes that require parts or tools. Oh well, finally a little progress. Matt came to the shop and helped me put the aft fuselage back together to the point that I had it before I decided to drill everything apart and re-do my work.

Getting the shims between the tail spring mount and the bulkhead. You can see in this picture though the clekos in the horizontal stab mounting bars...I ran out of those larger rivets. Decided to press forward and install the bulkhead and put those rivets in later.

The bottom aft skin came together much nicer this time around.

Finally moved beyond where I had it 2 months ago, note to self, slow down and go home if you dont have the tools, parts, or energy. A day or 2 is shorter and cheaper than 2 months or rework!

Another view of the side with almost all of the rivets in!

The larger rivets came in, I used the squeezer where I could and drove the remaining ones, glad this worked out.

Optional dimpled access panels need these different nut plates that don't come with the kit, ordered them from aircraft spruce, the install went mostly smooth. Had to drill out 1 and redo it.

Finally the entire aft sides are done!

Work on the aft deck!

Cruising along!

And my mistake for the day... Drilling this bracket I didn't have the double plate under it so I drilled the holes slightly to low...New part ordered.

You can see with the double plate riveted to the deck how the hole in the bracket is higher than the hole in the stabilizer mounting bar. I probably could "fix" this but i've learned it usually faster and easier and causes less damage to get a new part and do it again.

 Moving forward anyway! Drilling the mounting holes for the vertical stabalizer!

Oh man looks like and airplane!

The holes start as #30 and need to be perpendicular to the bulkhead and 1/4". I step drilled them with 3 drill bits and finished with the 1/4" reamer.

Boom airplane tail!

Aft Fuselage Man Hours 19.0 Hours

Horisontal Stabilizer Mistake Repair

RV14 Build August 2

Horizontal Stabilizer

Just as a recap. When I first assembled the HS the primer I used wasn't mixed correctly and I was concerned it wasn't going to cure and cause issues down the line. So I drilled everything apart and stripped the primer off and re-primed. Since I had assembled everything once I did it again mostly from memory and this is where I got myself into trouble. The front and rear spars have an Up and Down orientation and depending on how you look at it I flipped 1 of them when installing them. I thought I would be able to modify the rear spar to work, but the rivet holes to mount to the brackets are on an angle and not straight 90 degrees to the fuselage so the orientation of the rear became the driver. This meant I needed to drill out the rear spar or located and drill new mounting holes in the front spar.

I decided to drill the front spar. First I ordered the front spar doubler and match drilled the mounting holes into it. The red arrows show the holes that need to be drilled.

After I match drilled the double i bolted it on using the Vertical stab mounting bolt holes for orientation and then used a drill bit guide block to drill straight.

Here goes nothing!

Repeating the process on the other side.

I think I managed to pull this one off! I send pictures to Vans and am still waiting on there reply as to if this is ok! If not I will be building a new Horizontal Stab.....yikes! If they say its all good then this is officially done!

Horizontal Stabilizer Hours 3.0

Aft Fuselage mistake repairs

RV14 Build August 2

Aft Fuselage

All the replacement parts for the aft fuselage lower aft skin came in so i prepped them for primer, primed, and started the repairs. 

I forgot to order rivets to build this bulkhead so Im stopped dead in my tracks again!!

Or am I! When I was as Oshkosh I was talking with one of the vans engineers about my poor drilling out of the j stiffener rivets when I was drilling out the aft lower skin. He urged me to replace the whole stiffener rather than splice in a new one or build a doubler. I was apprehensive since drilling rivets is what caused most of the damage Im now repairing, but i decided I needed to learn to do that better and took his advice. It worked perfectly. Removed the old one with almost no issues and installed the new one once the paint dried, with Matts help on the rivet gun again!

My "snowman" drill holes that need to be fixed

View of the old one.

View of the New one, looking O so good!

Front end of the new one, runs the whole length of this section.

Getting ready to rivet. No pictures of that, but we got it installed.

Aft Fuselage Man Hours 8.0