You Meet the Nicest People

Step 1 of Section 10 has us "break" the edges on six 8' tailcone skins.   By "break" they mean bend the long edges of the skins a few degrees so that the overlapping edge is flat and snug when the skin is riveted (the clamping pressure of a rivet can cause the edge to lift a little bit).   Due to the geometry of the tailcone (radius is smaller at the back end than the front end) the bend, or "break", increases as you move down the narrow end(s) of the skin(s).  Fortunately there's a handy tool for breaking edges (shown in the picture) that I borrowed from the guy at work.  Apparently it's easy to use once you learn how.  Problem is I don't know how to use it.  Seriously.  Clueless.  Never seen it done before.  The owner of the tool never used it either.  So I put a message out to the Sacramento RVators group to ask for help. 

Right away the group's founder, president, secretary, treasurer, and newsletter editor, Ed Martinson, put me in contact with Kerry Richburg, a retired fellow who flies a beautiful RV-9A he built at Sacramento Executive airport.  Kerry took time out of his morning (he was prepping to fly to Monterey) to introduce me to the edge tool and a few other tools that I'll be needing down the road, including a tube bender and fuel line flaring tool.  The SacRVators group loans them out like a library book so that RV builders don't have to shell out dough for an expensive tool they may only use a few times.  Here's a picture of Kerry and his -9A:

 

Kerry demonstrated proper technique for breaking an edge and gave me some scrap aluminum to practice with (it's not like you can just pick up 2024-T3 0.020" aluminum at Home Depot, and none came with the kit).  He also passed along info about a flying club called DGA (Damn Good Association) located at the other end of the airport.  The club's hangar is open weekends and anyone can drop by and take the nickel tour of some of the club's 10 different airplanes.  At any given time the club is always rebuilding some vintage aircraft, but the latest project acquired by the club is a partially-completed RV-12.  It seems that the original builder became ill (Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or something like that) and was unable to finish.  So the club bought his partially completed -12 for less than the cost of the kits.  The finished parts include the stabilator, vertical stabilizer, rudder, trim tabs, tail cone, wings, flaperons, and most of the fuselage, all very nicely put together.  Here's a picture of the tail cone, which is the part that I'm just now starting:

 

I asked one of the builders there, Mark Z., how long he thought it would take the club to put the -12 together and he said that they would probably have it flying by April.  Holy c*@p!  He also speculated that, with high fuel prices, it would be a very popular airplane for the club.  The good news is that there's at least one CFI (that's FAA-certified flight instructor you land-lubbers) in the club who will be able to provide the necessary transition training in the -12 before it's my turn to once again "slip the surly bonds".

 

November 2014 Update:

Okay I'm back from the future.  The DGA RV-12 was completed and certified airworthy in July 2013.  Club members flew it around, added wheel pants, and recently had it painted.  Here's a picture of N471PD:

 

Congratulations DGA!

Stabilator is Finished

Section 9 concludes with drilling holes and attaching weights to the counter balance arm.  With five pounds of lead weight on the counterbalance arm, the stabilizer now wants to tip forward except that my helpful assistant (out of the picture) is holding down the stab to prevent that.  After picture-taking the counterbalance arm is taken off and stowed away.

And   we    are    done!

With the stabilator finished it's time to move it to make room to start the next piece. The safe place turns out to be in the family room.  Nice place to store it, don't you think?

The vertical stabilizer and rudder are in the corner.  Together these parts should make interesting conversation pieces just in time for Thanksgiving festivities.

Coming up is Section 10: Tailcone assembly.
I have a feeling this part is going to take a while.

Halloween Downpour

Our neighborhood was swarmed last night with ninja warriors, vampires, princesses and trick-or-treaters dressed up as teenagers too lazy to put on a costume.  The problem with having generous neighbors is that ghouls and bandits from miles away are bussed in to collect a share of the loot.  Then at 8:30, after my kid returned with her cut of the action and three large bags of candy were just about gone, a storm front moved in that soaked the area for about five or ten minutes.  You could hear the cries and screams a block away.  Heh heh heh.  A steady drizzle afterwards meant that the Halloween blackmail was over and I could open up the airplane factory for a couple hours.

80 rivets later the aft stab skins are attached and it's time to attach the stab horns.

One of the bolt holes on the lower horn did not line up perfectly with the nut plate inside the spar box so I had to elongate one hole slightly in order to get the bolt in the nut plate without risking a cross-threaded bolt.  Really hated to mar the powder coat finish on the steel stab horns but it was necessary since moving the nut plate was out of the question.  I think it will be okay.  I'm probably not the first one who's done this.  If I had a do-over I would have taken much better care to center the nut plates for the horn bolts exactly before the spar box is riveted together.

The stab counterweight arm is put back on temporarily in order to attach lead counterweights, which I'll do tonight.