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

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