Waiting for Drill Bits & Dimple Dies

The next two steps call for final drilling a bunch of holes on the skin with a #19 drill bit and then dimpling the holes so that the screws that will go in the holes are flush with the skin.  A #19 is halfway between a 5/32nds and a 11/64ths drill bit (which I have) and in this case is the only size that will do.  So I'm on hold 'til I get a couple of 19's ordered and shipped and maybe a few other sizes along with a #8 dimple die set.  It's all good though since the London Olympics have started and I want to watch Michael Phelps kick some butt if for no other reason than to see his "Mom" do another SNL skit ("my son got 8 gold medals - how many did yours get?").  Don't want to go too fast; this is a VSB after all.

Primer

With the Saturday morning garage sale done with for the year there were adequate conditions (not breezy or too hot) to protect the V-stab skeleton by spraying it with primer.  I put enough scratches in the spar that I feel better coating it before the AlClad skin goes on and the skeleton is out of sight forever (one hopes).  The only self-etching primer the local NAPA store carries is DAP 1690.  DAP 1690 is kind of an olive drab except uglier, if such a thing is possible.  The stuff costs $10 a can and coating the V-stab skeleton took about one and 1/2 cans.

  
Hung the V-stab skeleton from a string to spray it with the rattle-can.  It's rather flimsy until it gets its skin rivted on, but very light.

Notice the color on the cap is nowhere close to the color of the actual primer?  Before priming I cleaned the V-stab skeleton with NAPA 7234 Automotive Prep Clean, which is a spray-on wipe-off cleaning solvent, and let it dry for a couple hours.

V-Stab Skeleton Complete

Finished pop-riveting the lower spar caps onto the V-stab spar which meant that I could rivet the ribs onto the spar.  Here's the pics:

  

Tomorrow we're having a garage sale along with the neighbors, which, of course, will interrupt, again, any possibility of Saturday morning building time.  At least we'll get rid of some old dust-collecting stuff to make room for new dust-collecting stuff (heaven forbid that there might be an uncluttered corner of the house that's somehow been overlooked).

First Flush Rivet

As we saw earlier, my first round-head rivets worked out well, and the pop-rivets were fairly easy (I've done those before), but my first flush-head rivet didn't turn out so good.

So I had to drill out the first rivet and try again.  Fortunately the drill-out was pretty easy, and I managed to do it without enlarging the hole.  The remaining rivets on the upper spar caps (and nut plates behind the spar) were okay.  The Cleaveland Main Squeeze rivet squeezer takes a bit of skill to use on these tiny rivets and so eight small rivets took two hours.  At this rate I should have the plane built by, oh, July 2027.

A clamp helps keep things steady while lining up the squeezer on the rivet.  Another pair of hands would be even better.

Drill Bits Revisted

Recall my post on trying to use a 1/8" drill bit instead of a #30, and how that doesn't work because the rivets won't fit?  Well this post revisits the issue.  You see the plans call for match-drilling eight holes using a #12 bit through reinforcement parts called spar caps, which don't look like "caps" at all.  I don't have a #12, but I do have a 3/16ths bit.  A #12 is 0.1890 inches, and a 3/16ths is 0.1875 inches, which of course is 1.5 thousandths of an inch smaller.  I can order a #12 online of course, but shipping costs as much as the bit and takes a week, and I hate buying stuff if I already have a reasonably suitable replacement (??).  These holes will be used for small bolts, not rivets, and once the hole is deburred with the swivel-deburring tool the bolts fit just fine with the 3/16ths bit hole.  So I'm going to see if I can get away with using the 3/16ths.  If I'm wrong I'll 'fess up later, splurge on the #12 bit (and some other sizes that I'll be needing down the road) and re-drill the holes.

Match hole drilling - Vertical Stabilizer

I have beaucoup vacation hours so I took a day off of work to match-hole drill on the V-stab spar caps despite the dangerously hot weather.  Called it quits when the temperature hit 95 degrees and retreated indoors (did somebody say nap-time?).  Actually my cordless drill battery pooped out before I did, and I couldn't use the drill press for the spar flanges (sides), so I called it a day.

It's Too Hot!

Like the rest of the country it's getting hot here in Sacramento.  100-degree days means it's too hot to be in the garage for long.  The heat just sucks the energy right out of you.  The only chance to get any work done is in the morning, but Saturday I had chores to do and Sunday morning I helped the in-laws move their new [used] piano.  There's a reason piano movers are always brawny strong guys.  Those things are ridiculously heavy.

Since I got nothing done on the tail this weekend and have nothing to report, I thought I'd introduce the ferocious chief of airplane and shop security, Miss Terrible (Miss-T for short).  She's a 4 y.o. Cocker Spaniel currently sporting her summer trim.  MissT likes to hang out in the shop with me, but given her lack of opposable thumbs is pretty useless as a tech assistant.

I do have reservations about her character references though:

First Parts Made

Squeezed my first-ever rivets and made the first two parts:  upper and lower rudder hinge assemblies.  Some people paint these before riveting; some don't.  I don't think corrosion will be a problem in sunny Sacramento.  If I'm wrong in 35 years I'll reorder these parts.

I would be remiss if I didn't pass along some of what I've learned so far to future RV builders.  See those five rivets there?  The parts come pre-drilled with under-sized holes.  The plans call for final match drilling with a #30 drill bit before riveting.  Well guess what.  Neither Home Depot nor Harbor Freight sell #30 drill bits.  According to Mr. Google (who knows everything), a #30 bit is 0.1285 inches, and a 1/8" bit is 0.1250 inches, which of course is only 3.5 thousandths of an inch smaller, and I already had one of those, so I figured a 1/8" bit could work if I made a couple of passes.  Wrong.  The rivet called for would not fit in the hole.  Had to redrill the holes with a #30 as called for in the plans.  Fortunately I found a spare #30 in one of the small parts trays I got from my coworker so I didn't have to wait a week for a mail order.  Lesson learned.

Tooling Up

Free.  It's such a nice word.  Rhymes with "me" and "glee".
I'm fortunate to work with an RV-7 builder that had opted to stop building and offered to let me borrow his tools for free!  Saturday I picked up a nice nice assortment of his airplane building tools including a band saw, drill press, bench grinder, rivet squeezers (pneumatic and hand), air drill and a bench belt/disk sander.  Plus an additional shop bench (with a bench vise already bolted on) and a small parts rack with many of the slide-out containers pre-labled with the same rivet #s that the -12 uses.  Bench grinder came with a Scotchbrite wheel which is handy for trimming and deburring alumninum parts.  I have only a vague idea of what task some of the other tools perform but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.  To top off this Christmas-in-July my next door neighbor is loaning me his air compressor for the minor cost of mowing his front lawn, which only takes an extra five minutes and which I've already been doing for the last ten years for free anyway ("for free" if you exclude the 15 times a year I ask him to help me lift something heavy, or borrow his power tools and other stuff, including space in his "big" garbage can on pickup day when my "small" can gets too full).

I'm also pleased to report that I got the parts inventory done over the weekend and rearranged stuff to make space and make sure nothing expensive-looking gets shop rash. All parts were accounted for.

The spaghetti of electrical plugs kinda reminds you of Clark Griswold's house at Christmas, don't it?  Just hope nobody hits the garage door opener while the air compresser is running.