January 17, 2009: Step Attach Angles and Nutplate Bracket

On this Saturday, I spent 4.5 hours on the plane, pg. 21-16 & 17, riveting the bottom skin and stiffeners into place. No problems here, just keep at it!

Then, moved onto step 1 on page 21-17 and this went well for a time. I read the directions carefully but not carefully enough. The plans call for you to separate the F-1236 Step Attach Angles and then step 2 calls for trimming "2" of the attach angles. Things were going so well and I was so engrossed in doing a good job with trimming, deburring, etc. that I did all 4 attach angles. FRUSTRATINGLY dumb mistake. (Monday, I went to Van's and bought more angle. Once I recovered my calm, I went on to make the nutplate brackets and MCS as called out.

January 17, 2009: Step Attach Angles and Nutplate Bracket

On this Saturday, I spent 4.5 hours on the plane, pg. 21-16 & 17, riveting the bottom skin and stiffeners into place. No problems here, just keep at it!

Then, moved onto step 1 on page 21-17 and this went well for a time. I read the directions carefully but not carefully enough. The plans call for you to separate the F-1236 Step Attach Angles and then step 2 calls for trimming "2" of the attach angles. Things were going so well and I was so engrossed in doing a good job with trimming, deburring, etc. that I did all 4 attach angles. FRUSTRATINGLY dumb mistake. (Monday, I went to Van's and bought more angle. Once I recovered my calm, I went on to make the nutplate brackets and MCS as called out.

January 15, 2009: Bottom Stiffeners & Nutplates & Bottom Skin...

Separated F-1204Z bottom stiffeners and F-1268A-E Doublers without incident. Be sure to mark the doublers to facilitate their correct placement. I used the nibbler that Jim Cone mentioned and it works very well to separate parts.

After this fabrication work, moved on to page 21-16 and completed the dimpling and attachment of nutplates around access holes. Step 3 on that page calls for breaking the edges along both sides for the F-1276 bottom skin. For this, I used the tool pictured, available from Avery.

January 15, 2009: Bottom Stiffeners & Nutplates & Bottom Skin...

Separated F-1204Z bottom stiffeners and F-1268A-E Doublers without incident. Be sure to mark the doublers to facilitate their correct placement. I used the nibbler that Jim Cone mentioned and it works very well to separate parts.

After this fabrication work, moved on to page 21-16 and completed the dimpling and attachment of nutplates around access holes. Step 3 on that page calls for breaking the edges along both sides for the F-1276 bottom skin. For this, I used the tool pictured, available from Avery.

January 12-14, 2009: Fuselage Corner Skins

pg. 21-15 Attaching the corner skins presented no challenge. I dd tape the holes that were not to be riveted. Then moved onto the F-1274-R & L fuselage corner skins, again without problems.

January 11, 2009: Control Column, Step Ribs & Snap Busings

Today was spent on pg. 21-14. I installed the control column using tweezers! That's right, tweezers. It's a tight fit getting into the area to slide the bolt through, along with the appropriate washers. Following the directions which suggested using tape to hold the washers, I improvised a bit and taped the washers together (2 side by side, two sets per bolt) and used tweezers to position the washers while sliding the bolt into place. Worked Great!

Then moved onto step 2, more dimpling and deburring, to install the step ribs (pg. 21-14). All went well and the ribs are installed. Next, prepared the F-1202F bulkhead, clecoed into place (DO NOT RIVET).

Now, here is where it got interesting. The next step, step 7, calls for installing snap businging on bulkheads. One problemo, Bulkhead F-1204A is missing one hole and another is undersized. On the forum, JTE identified this back in December, but I did not remember it for when I got to this stage. I'm going to write to Van's and get a reply, in writing, so that I can include the reply in my builder's log. Then, onto the curve skins!

January 10, 2009: F-1203A Bulkhead (cont.)

Staying on pg. 21-11 I started this Saturday's building extravanza on step 3. I spent about 4 hours on steps 3-5. It was at least twice as long as necessary because I didn't pay enough attention to which side of the bulkhead to install the Control Column Mount Assemblies and started right off putting the first one on the wrong side. If that wasn't enough, I had used the wedge tool to put the rivets in, and the shanks broke off a good 1/4 inch above the rivet. Correcting this mistake was problematic. To make things even worse, I also had installed the nutplates which were even more challenging to remove. PAY ATTENTION!!! This misstep cost me time and degraded the quality of the build a bit.

Moving on to pg. 21-12 was good. No significant challenges, but again, pay attention to what the plans call out in terms of where to dimple. I took the advice of others and taped off those nutplate holes that were NOT to be dimpled. The challenge on this page is how to position the bulkhead so that you can use the hand squeezer to make the dimples.

Pg. 21-13 is prett straight forward, but I was careful and took plenty of time to read & re-read the riveting instructions. Be sure not to rivet the F-1253 L & R. You will need to work the control column through this location and will need to bend this part of the way to make the fit. On step 5 the plans indicate to final drill the 3/8 inch hole to 1/2 inch. I did this on the drill-press using the uni-bit and it went well. Be sure to do the FORWARD hole as identified.

One question came up in my mind when I got to riveting the seat ramp floors to the F-1215 seat ribs. Some of the ribs that had dimpled holes on the upper flange did not need the dimple as the plans call out using a LP4-3 rivet. Oh well, I hope this is correct.

Finished the night by inserting the control column through the lightening holes. This took a bit of maneuvering, but with gentle persistence it went into place. Tomorrow I'll pick up on pg. 21-14.