Thursday, September 14, 2023

Fuselage center section #35 - bottom skin prep

 Spent this evening prepping this pile of parts.  Lots of edge treatment, deburring and slightly chamfering holes.  Also dimpled where some nutplates will be installed.






Oh crap!  I forgot the bottom skin!  Back to the garage!

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Fuselage center section #34 - bottom skin prep

Flipped the center assembly today and got started on the skin and other part prep....


Got started by cutting all the bottom corner skins apart and deburring the flashing.

7 different parts for these bottom corner skins.

Flipped the whole assembly.  Shored up the middle and let the vertical parts hang between the tables.

Test fitting all the bottom corner skins.

This skin gets some dimples and nutplates.

Spent some time looking for a part that does not get used on the ULS version.  I did not look at the KAI's that tell you to skip it.


Cutting some more parts apart that get attached to the bottom skin.

These gussets get cut apart.  Label them before cutting to ensure they are correct.


I did all these and deburred them.  Will have a big batch to prime.


Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Fuselage center section #33 - Foot floor area part assembly

 Came home today after work and got the floor rib area parts primed.  Then after they were dry I finished the riveting of this area.

MMMMM, primed ribs!

I backtracked and riveted in these covers.  I forgot these on the last riveting session.

I almost screwed up but took another glance at the KAI's and realized that this cap does not actually cap the verticals like it did on my RV7, it sits on the forward web of the verticals.

Rivets here were hand pulled.

I then riveted the heavy angles onto the ribs.

And then riveted the ribs to the bulkhead.  Used the angle tool on all of these.
Other side done.  Pay close attention to the orientation of these parts.

They have you use these AN4 bolts as a temporary alignment tool.

Then rivet the heavy angles only.  Apparently those are the critical players.

Right side done.

Left side done.

Finished up with these snap bushings and this plastic bushing.


Monday, September 11, 2023

Fuselage center section #32 - Foot floor area part prep

 Deburring, acid etch and scrubbing the foot floor rib parts that I have prepped..


While the parts dry, I installed all these bushings per the KAI's.





Just make sure you pay attention to the orientation in which these are inserted.


Sunday, September 10, 2023

Fuselage center section #31 - Foot floor area part prep

 Got to move another area forward to the foot rib area of the forward fuse:

So the RV7 had a ton of parts that had to be fabricated out of heavy stock like this.  The 12 not so much and I am grateful.  I have been dreading having to deal with these but here we are.

After separating the 4 parts out of the angle, I cleaned up the ends nice and square using the disc sander with a brand new piece of sandpaper.  This made this easy and did not heat up the parts too bad.

Next was marking the parts per the drawing.  There are two different parts here and each have mirrors of each other for a total of four parts.   Extreme caution is used to prevent removing or damaging fingers.  Fresh blades cut this stuff like butter.

Measure three times and cut once.  Pay careful attention to which version of the part you have and watch the mirrored features!

The narrow flange is common to all four parts.

The wide side is where the differences are.  Two of them are much wider than the other two.

All done!

The two center ribs get dimpled for future flush rivets.  Use the 120° dimple dies here because these will get pulled rivets and pulled are 120° and solid rivets are 100°.

The lower outside most rib flange gets dimpled.  Use the 120° dimple dies.

The matching hole in the bulkhead also gets dimpled with the 120° dies.

The bulkhead gets dimpled for a couple nutplates.

Ready to tear it all down and prep for primer....