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

Aft Fuselage Mocking up and Prime July 5 & 6

RV14 Build July 5 & 6

Aft Fuselage

With the elevators basically done back to work on the aft fuselage! Started out by countersinking the stiffeners. Im having issues with the runout on my Dewalt drill, but the air drill kept chattering with the counter sink, so Im gonna have to find a solution. There is way to much drilling ahead to not be able to do that comfortably.

Rear lower skin cutting and drilling with the template. This is done so the tail spring mount can come though the skin.

After the modifications

Testing the tail spring mount clearance. You can see it doesn't sit flush with the rear bulkhead because of the weld bead on the mount. Ill have to cut away from the bulkhead to make room.

Marking where to cut.

Testing the fit after cutting.

Looks great now!

Now just cleaning up the edges of the skins, etching the metal and prepping to prime, then priming.

Mixing the primer

Finally done for the day!

Aft Fuselage 10.5 Hours