December 15, 2007
I decided to get started on the ailerons today during a lull in wing skin riveting. The first step on the ailerons is to trim and edge-finish stiffeners. I didn't take any pictures, but if you go back and look at stiffener fab for the elevators and rudder, you'll get the idea.
December 31, 2007
When I built the elevators, I did the final trailing egde bends on Dave Rogers's bending brake. I didn't have access to Dave's brake for the ailerons, so I built my own per Vans' instructions, out of 2"x"8 lumber and a long piano hinge I found at Home Depot. The piano hinge turned out to be not such a great idea, it's just a little too flexible - but more on that later.
After finishing the brake I started match-drilling the ailerons and stiffeners. Nothing new here, but I did take a picture anyway. And that's all I have to say about that.
January 6, 2008
Happy New Year! I celebrated the start of 2008 by doing something that I had managed to avoid in the last three and a half years - I missed a rivet hole while dimpling the aileron skins. Van's said press on, so that's what I'm doing for now.
January 9, 2008
Got the ailerons and stiffeners primed today...
January 12, 2008
Riveted ailerons to stiffeners today. I must be out of practice with the back-rivet set, because I had several drillers. Grrr...
January 14, 2008
There were just too many things going wrong with the left aileron skin so I bit the bullet and ordered a new one, plus stiffeners, from Van's. Chalk the $50 in parts up to experience and practicing patience...
January 20, 2008
While waiting for the replacement aileron skin to arrive, I started on the aileron spars and reinforcement plates. The plates are fabricated from 0.040" sheet, and match-drilled to the aileron spars. The only trick here is making sure that the spar orientation is correct...outboard vs inboard, left vs right.
I also bent the right aileron trailing egde using the bending brake mentioned above. The piano hinge I bought at Home Despot looked to be a good idea at the time, but after a couple of bends I noticed that the hinge eyes were flexing a lot and not squeezing the trailing edge as I would've liked. Before I bend the left aileron, I think I'll replace the piano hinge with regular heavy-duty door hinges.
March 30, 2008
I had a bit of a hiatus on the ailerons while I was getting the wings out of the jig. Well, I'm back on them now and starting back on the left aileron now that the new skin has arrived. Got the stiffeners fabricated and match-drilled, deburred them and the skin, then dimpled same. Got the stiffeners riveted and then clecoed everything together for match-drilling...
After that, I did the same thing on the right aileron. I won't waste your bandwidth on a pic, since it looks the same as the previous picture...only different.
April 12, 2008
While match-drilling the left leading edge to the countersink pipe, I managed to goober up a hole pretty badly when the drill bit chattered in the hole. I intially decided to live with it until I disassembled both ailerons for final deburring. It was impossible to clean up that errant hole wihout dramatically enlarging it and although I'm sure Van's and most other builders would say to "build on", I wasn't happy with what I had. So I ordered a new leading edge from Van's, it wasn't too terribly expensive.
April 19, 2008
The new leading edge for my left aileron arrived today. Somehow, the part sustained a pretty good whack on one end. Must've happened at Van's, because there was no damage to the shipping container. I called Van's, they promptly shipped a replacement with no complaint.
May 4, 2008
Over the last few days I match-drilled the #30 leading edge-to-counterweight holes in the left and right ailerons. For those of you who aren't familiar with an RV aileron counterweight (and that's probably most of you), it's simply a length of galvanzied steel water pipe that's blind-riveted inside the aileron's leading edge. Its purpose is to add some aerodynamic balance to the control surface, and to improve aileron control feel.
Nothing magical here, the only minor trick is getting everything up off the workbench when drilling these two parts in assembly because the leading edge skin is pretty flimsy and can be easily damaged by horsing the counterweight around. After drilling these holes, the counterweight is countersunk and the leading edge skin is dimpled. There's no real mystery in countersinking the weight, you just need to know how deep to go. I went far enough so that the edges of the blind rivet are completely enclosed by the countersink; that means that the hole actually is an oval in the pipe. Sorry, no pictures of the hole - only the pipe. Use your imagination.
But how do you dimple those holes in the leading edges that will nest inside the countersinks just completed? There's a simple trick - just cleco the weights back into the leading edges, support the assembly with a 2"x4", and use a male dimple die to press a dimple into each countersink. Doesn't have to be perfect, since the skin and blind rivets are prett soft and will give somewhat when riveted. To make this process easier, I stuck a #30 male dimple die into my old non-adjustable rivet squeezer set - like in these pictures.
A couple of light hits on the set with a dead-blow hammer, and the hole is dimpled. A CS4-4 blind rivet fits pretty well...
May 10, 2008
Primed those aileron countersinks - what a mess. That galvanized water pipe has some sort of coating that even MEK won't cut cut throught at first. The first application of primer didn't go so well, so I cleaned 'em off and re-shot. What fun. The little patches of masking tape cover the countersunk holes and were supposed to keep primer from gooshing out when poured into the pipe. That didn't work as well as I hoped.
After that, I clecoed the countersinks in the leading edges and assembled the left aileron for final riveting. Sorry, no pictures of the assembled aileron.
June 10, 2008
The ailerons went on hold for awhile as I waited for some riveting assistance. Started on the pushrods, and managed to bung up not only the small steel pushrods, but the large-diameter aluminum ones as well. Part of the problem was a simple mistake in reading the plans, the other part of the problem was more insidious. Sorry, there are no pictures here - I don't think I need any.
The plans-reading problem was pretty basic - I forgot that following the plans doesn't necessarily mean that all those standard-practice things, like edge distances, still apply. I fitted the threaded ends into the large aluminum pushrod tubes according to the plans, and wound up drilling holes that didn't meet the minimum edge distance on the threaded ends. I should have been paying attention...and I wasn't.
The second problem was the almost imperceptible rush to get something, anything, done...and that led to a lot of mistakes. My job is pretty stressful, the last two months have been worse than normal, and the next two will be worse still. That stress was bleeding over into my building, and worse, my family time. After screwing up the same part for the third time, my wife pulled me aside and wisely recommended that I slow down the project while things are so hectic...which is what I'm doing.
June 12, 2008
So...after those job-stress-induced issues, I ordered new parts for both the large and small aileron pushrods. Rather than go through another trial-and-error process of riveting rod-ends on the small steel pushrods, I decided to have them welded on by a local welder who does work on certified airplanes. Here's the final product, after priming.
June 27, 2008
I've been on travel for a week or so since the last entry. I decided to work slowly, surely and patiently on the large aluminum pushrods, measuring two or three times and taking great care in cutting and drilling. The result this time was much more successful. Here's one end of a pushrod with the threaded end match-drilled in place, done after the interior of the tube was primed.
After deburring, the threaded ends were wet-riveted in place with pulled rivets. Why the wet-riveting? Those pulled Cherry rivets are steel, and I didn't want any galvanic corrosion working on those pushrods.
After riveting, both pushrods got a final coat of primer.
July 3, 2008
Did a little pickup work fabricating aileron bellcrank spacers; sorry, no pictures.
July 6, 2008
Took advantage of the long holiday weekend and did some more bits-and-pieces work. This time it was installing rod-ends into the pushrods and setting them to the right overall length. I also test fitted the bellcrank spacers in each bellcrank and made sure there was no binding with the bellcrank mounts. I also started fitting pitot lines in the left wing, and final-drilled the pitot tube attachment holes in the SafeAir pitot tube mast.
August 4, 2008
My website updates are happening so infrequently these days that I doubt anyone still hits the site. I've been away on a work trip for most of the last month, acting as program manager and test director for a large DoD interoperability test event in the beautiful - but damn hot - California desert. Here are the folks and airplanes involved during a checkout flight test at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. I'm in there somewhere...
September 13, 2008
Got back into the ailerons today after doing some bits-and-pieces work on the wings. I'd previously clecoed the aileron skins, leading edge and spars/counterweights together for both ailerons and persuaded Captain John to help rivet the upper skin/leading egde/spar rivet line. Taking a cue from Chad Jensen, I attached a couple of pieces of 2"x4" to the workbench and placed the aileron nose-down between them. A couple of small screws hold them in place. This makes it relatively easy to do the riveting, but it still works best with two persons - so Captain John came up to help.
After a couple of hours we were done and proceeded to our favorite beer-and-nacho joint, the Sunset Tap and Grill in Allston, MA.
September 14, 2008
With the most difficult part of aileron riveting complete (or so I thought), pulled my trusty flat surface - a cheap hollow-core door from Home Depot - and set it on the bench. On top of that went the left aileron, clecoed together and weighted down by a couple of pieces of MDF. I checked the surface in several places using the digital level just to make sure that there was no twist in the aileron...and there wasn't.
September 28, 2008
Over the last two weeks I came closer to quitting the whole project than I ever have before. If you're the one person (either my wife or my mother, I can't tell from the IP address) who still visits this website, you've noticed that I had some issues over the summer deconflicting job stress from everything going on at home. Well, I guess that wasn't the end of my problems, because I found myself back in the same "hurry up and do something" mode when riveting this aileron together. Long story short, I screwed up a couple of things. My TC didn't think they were a big deal, but I wasn't happy.
So...I put the left aileron aside for a few days and had some serious discussions with Ellen. She set me straight, as she usually does, and I decided not to quit. But I did decide to build a new left aileron. I didn't want to be reminded of of my screwups.
One thing that helped my motivation level was a flight with my friend Jim in his new RV-7. I had a work trip to Seattle and lured Jim into giving me a ride with the promise of free food and beer. So...I arrived in Seattle and headed straight for Jim's hangar at the Auburn airport. Jim had only recently finished his 40 hour flyoff and his airplane was sans pants. Didn't matter to me, I was psyched.
Jim's airplane has one of the nicest interiors you'll see in an RV. The Classic Aero Design seats were wicked comfortable!
We took a quick hop to Chehalis, WA for gas, then bopped back up to Auburn. Jim tried out my new Lightspeed Zulu headset, he seems to like them.
The sun was setting rapidy, but I managed to snap a halfway decent shot of Mt Rainier before we encountered some severe helical turbulence..that was a lot of fun!
Aside from being just plain fun, this flight was my first opportunity to get some stick time in an RV-7. It was stable, yet responsive and the visibility was absolutely awesome...it validated my decision to build a tip-up. And most importantly, it gave me the shot of motivation I needed to reengage on my own airplane. That's just what I needed...thanks Jim!
October 3, 2008
With my new-found motivation and a clear head, I went back to work on the right aileron. Today I finished up all the riveting, both the pop rivets on the spar and the solid rivets on the ribs. I torqued on the brackets and mounted the aileron on the wing. Looks great!
As with the left aileron, I used the hollow-core door and some MDF to weight the aileron down as I riveted. The aileron had no measurable twist, so I must have done something right. The parts for the new left aileron have arrived, and I'll start in on that after I make some progress on the flaps.
January 5, 2009
Cracked open the parts for my new left aileron. Cut the stiffeners to length from stock, then trimmed them to their final shape. Hopefully this will be the last set of stiffeners I do...until the next kit! Sorry, no pictures.
January 10, 2009
Over the last three days I've been deburring and dimpling all remaining control surface parts, including the left aileron. All those aileron parts are now ready for priming! Once again, no pictures. Use your imagination!
February 22, 2009
Got the remaining aileron parts primed today, with the exception of the counterweight. No pictures here, they're on the flaps page for more info.
February 28, 2009
After getting all those aileron parts primed last weekend, I back-riveted the stiffeners to the skin. No new pictures, but it looks something like this.
February 28, 2009
After getting all those aileron parts primed last weekend, I back-riveted the stiffeners to the skin. No new pictures, but it looks something like this.
April 2, 2009
With the with flaps done, I dusted off all those left aileron parts and jumped back into finishing it up. First order of business was to do the final bend on the trailing edge. I used the bending brake I had made previously, but wasn't getting that nice 3/16" radius called for in the plans.
So I started experimenting with my hand seamer (no jokes, please). Some other builders have used them to do the final trailing edge bend, but I was wary about the seamer edges putting crimps in the aileron skin. So I hit on the idea of taping strips of 0.025" alclad to the seamer's jaws to distributed the seamer's clamping force a little more evenly.
That worked like a champ, and with the dowels still taped in place, I was able to get the bend radius right where I wanted it.
April 7, 2009
The only remaining tasks before final assembly were to match-drill, countersink and prime the counterweight pipe, and assemble the spar/counterweight structure. You'll find the details on this process in the previous entries on this page, so I'm not gonna repeat them here.
I was a little surprised to see the following text on the replacement counterweight pipe that Van's delivered...click here for the full-size picture. Be patient, the original pic is 1+ megaabytes.
April 11, 2009
Got the aileron nose ribs, spars, reinforcement plates, platenuts and counterweight all riveted together today. Also clecoed the entire aileron assembly together in preparation for riveting, and mounted it in the 2"x4" uprights I used previously to hold the aileron.
April 18, 2009
Just got back from another trip yesterday. Got to work this morning riveting the upper spar to the nose and main aileron skins. Managed to do it myself this time, after good practice on the flaps. Came out well, I'm pretty psyched. Once that was done, I squeezed all the nose rib rivets I could reach.
April 19, 2009
The last major hurdle in the never-ending aileron saga was to put the left aileron on a flat surface, pull the blind rivets that secure the spar bottom and skins, and squeeze the end rib rivets. When I did this before I used an old hollow-core door, tweaked it with shims until it was flat, then laid the aileron on it and weighted it down with two heavy pieces of MDF. Worked ok, but it was a little too wiggly for my taste. But where else would I find a flat surface?
Well, it turns out that we just finished having our kitchen remodeled, and those new granite countertops looked like they would fill the bill. So I pulled out the trusty SmartLevel, checked 'em, and sure enough they were flat to within 0.1 degrees in all directions. For $8,000, they damn well ought to be.
So after breakfast today I cleaned all the kitchen crap off of those countertops and turned 'em into my temporary workbench. I plopped that aileron on the bar countertop, weighted it down, ran an air hose up the stairs from the garage through the den to the kitchen, grabbed my pop-riveting tool and pneumatic squeezer, and went to work.
Man, those countertops worked like a champ - that aileron came out with no more than 0.1 degree of twist. I did as many rivets as I could up there - enough to lock the structure in place - then finished everything else up downstairs in the shop.
April 25, 2009
I spent most of my shop time during the last week installing the left aileron's brackets , and getting both ailerons correctly fitted on the wing hinge brackets. As other builders have also experienced, the aileron hinge brackets on my wings had a slight list and I was concerned that this might interfere with aileron movement. But I was able to adjust the inboard/outboard position of the ailerons by adjusting spacers and washers on the aileron hinges - so there was no problem. Very cool!
With that, I'm declaring the ailerons complete - for now.