Finished stairway. What a pain this was. The stair nose molding had to be special ordered and was super expensive to boot. The top stair had to be trimmed and the carpet re-tacked in place. Almost as tedious as building your own airplane, if I do say so myself. I guess a good thing about it is I got real familiar with my new dremel vibrating saw and sanding tool. This was pretty much the last thing that I did to complete the floors, because I knew it would take a fair amount of work to get it done.
And the tile landing with the the trim and grout in place.
OK - enough about floors. How about some rudder pics! Here's the Rudder after masking both the inside and outside in order to finish priming the forward flanges and the top and bottom rib attach areas, which, as I stated in previous posts, I should have taken care of BEFORE I bent the rudder skin.
Shows the forward rudder flanges after priming was completed. The masking job, although quite time consuming, worked out fairly nicely.
Next is the top or tip rib with the counterbalance skin riveted in place. Note the clecoes holding the aft part together. These hles are not riveted yet because this is where the rib assembly will attach to the skin in a later assembly step. Note the lead counter balance in the front of the rib. This actually works by "countering" the weight of the control surface on the back side of the hinge line, with an equalizing counter weight on the forward side of the hinge line, so that the surface basically desires to return to the neutral position after being displaced. It makes the controls much easier to move, the airplane much easier to handle, and makes it safer at higher airspeeds.
I guess some folks recommend leaving the outerskin off the rib until AFTER riveting the rib to the spar, since they use the pneumatic squeezer on these rivets. One thing I have learned about my own riveting skills along the way is that I do much better when bucking the structural rivets of ribs onto spars than when I try to use that blasted heavy awkward pneumatic squeezer. So I will buck these rivets to the spar as well. So no problem putting on the outer skin for me.
A very poor pic of the notches I drilled on the lead counterweight in order to clear the shop heads of the rivets along the inside of the rib. I used a number 12 drill bit for this, and carefully gouged out just enough material for the needed clearance. After everything is painted I may even need to add more weight to this area to re-balance the newly painted surface.
Yes this is extremely important. Just recently the Canadian equivalent of our own NTSB in the USA released a final report on an accident involving a Canadian registered RV-7A that suffered structural failure in flight. ONe of the findings was that there was no record of the control surfaces ever being balanced at all, either before or after painting. This may have played a roll on the incident, so I will be paying very close attention to this aspect of the build with every control surface.
Shows the rivets in relation to the counterbalance and the clearance that was needed, especially on the left front side. The counterbalance is bolted to the assembly through the two big holes in the middle. This is removed during final assembly of the rudder to make it easier to handle, and re-attached when the rudder assembly is finished. The remaining portion of the counterbalnce skin will be used as attach points for the fiberglass tip later on.
I used a number 10 countersink bit to countersink the bottom of the lead weight so that it fits flush against the rib web and the dimples for the screws.
Rudder control horn attached to the bottom rib and the main spar. note the scuffed area where I had to debur a gouge caused by the bucking bar while attempting to set this rive the first time. I will reapply primer to this area later. Also note the riveted nut plate in the middle of the assembly. This is where the rod end bearing is inserted. This bearing is the pivoting point of the rudder that slips between the hinges on the VS. There are three of these for the rudder.
And the other side of the same area. Note the scuff mark on the bottom for the same rivet in the previous pic. I will re-prime that as well.
The nut plate and support plate for the mid-level hinge on the forward spar
And the support plate and nut plate for the top hinge. Note the deformed shop heads for the nut plate. Yes, I inevitably had to drill these out and and replace them too. I did that this evening. Now they are nice and round, but I also managed to bend the flange of the nut plate while pounding out the rivet, so I had to replace that nut place as well. Now I need to place an order to Van's for more nut plates, since I am short one, adn they did not seem to give me any extra ones like they do with the rivets... :(
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