Category: RV10

RV10 Build Project

Flaps – Part 3

Brian 0 Comment Flaps

With my experience on the left flap, I am able to jump into getting the right flap done in short(ish) order. I am trying to keep my experience on the left flap forefront in my mind, but even still I’m bound to miss something.

The hardest part for me has been motivation. Looking at the collection of parts and all the sanding, deburring, drilling, and riveting has kept me from working on on the project a bit. It was from sheer force of will that I would go into the garage to just make progress. Some days it was just to file down the edge on a few ribs, other times it was just to disassemble part in prep for priming or some other task. Either way, just keep making small steps and things continue to move forward!

With that all said, I basically follow the same steps as the left flap. Nose ribs and sub-components were already created, but I start to assemble the flap skeleton. Lots of match drilling, then start fitting on the skins. Match drill all the skins. Then it’s deburring and prep for primer.

With all the components primed, you slowly start to assemble. Dimple the necessary parts and rivet the sub-components. Then assembly onto the spar. I actually missed putting the edge break onto the skins prior to dimpling so I ended up having to manually do it with the duckbill pliers. Not as pretty as with the edge break tool, but turned out fine.

Rivet the top skin to the ribs, and the bottom skin to the spar. Remember not to install the blind rivets until you have the trailing edge in place. I also fabricated a TE cleco surface out of a Home Depot piece of angle aluminum. 8″ long and 2-1/2″ wide, drilled with the same hole spacing as the TE wedge. This gives me a nice flat surface to cleco the TE and skins to when I use proseal since my workbenches are not 100% flat.

With the pro-seal set, I then install the blind rivets on the bottom skin, then double-flush rivet the trailing edge. After cleaning up a few spots of proseal, both flaps were completed and mounted temporarily on the wings. I’ll need to remove them and the ailerons to get the bottom skins installed but that looks like it will be in another year or so (just before or after I move the project to the airport.). Only thing left is to pressure test and possibly repair any leaks in the fuel tanks then it’s full steam ahead on the fuselage.

Fuel Tank – Part 6

Brian 0 Comment Fuel Tanks

Well, it is time to finally seal up the fuel tanks. To begin this process, I first leak tested the tanks with tap water just to make sure there were no obvious leaks. Easy enough to do, put the tanks in the cradle, and fill with as much water as you can before it spills over one of the sides. Then put some paper towels down under the tank to help show if there was a leak.

I found a small leak on both tanks, but both instances were from the blue AN hardware that just needed to be tightened. No leaks from rivets or seams so started to feel confident that I could seal up the tank.

Next, I got everything ready to seal the tanks. I primed the back of the baffle as well as the tank attach Zees. With everything collected, I set aside a few hours to get it all assembled For the first tank, I mixed a batch of proseal from my pint container as I ran out of the pre-measured tubes (ordered more for the second tank). Then into the SEMCO dispenser and applied a good bead to all the tank baffles and the skin edges. I made sure to put a larger glob in the corners of the inner and outer baffles as there is a decent gap there. I also spread the sealant out to ensure full and even coverage.

Next, I dropped the baffle into place and clecoed every hole along the skins and outer ribs. Following the directions, I then rivet the outer rivets on all of the ribs, followed by installing the attach Zees and blind riveting them into place (dipping the ends of each blind rivet into proseal). Then it’s on to riveting the skins to the baffle with the exception of the non-countersunk holes. Let the proseal set up about 24 hours, then countersink and rivet those last few locations.

All went wonderful for both tanks, until I was just about done, when I saw the following:

Much cursing and and anger followed, but honestly it is what it is. I’m guessing this rivet wasn’t fully set for one reason or another but I failed to notice it. Maybe it got caught on the cradle and pulled the rivet head? Who know, but this does mean I’ll have to install an access panel on this tank. Already reached out to Vans and think I know what I need to order. Just waiting for the proseal to fully set (30 days) then I’ll do a pressure test on both tanks to make sure there are no other areas that need repair before I order the access panel kits. If this is the only thing that needs to be fixed, I’ll be thrilled!.

Currently the tanks are sitting in storage. I have all the holes plugged and tank cap on. With the temp changes, I’m expecting some pressure build-up in the tanks and last time I opened the fuel cap, I did hear the pressure equalize. This makes me fairly confident that I have a good seal at the moment. Fingers crossed. For now I’ll keep the tanks off the wings until I’m done pressure testing and repairing the bad rivet.

Bottom Wing Skin – Part 5

Brian 0 Comment Bottom Wing Skins

With the gap fairing installed, and thoughts that maybe I should just install the bottom skin on the wings, I decided to stop avoiding it and get moving.

First thing I needed to do was read up on where I wanted to mount the Pitot tube mast on the wing. Saw lots of folks talking about mounting it almost at the wingtip, but honestly decided I was going to mount mine in the location outlined in the RV-10 plans.

At this point, I’m already thinking I’m going with the G3X system (or at least the Garmin ecosystem) in my airplane, so I went ahead and purchased the GAP-26 heated and regulated pitot tube as well as the pitot mast. I also purchased the Gretz pitot mast kit from Aircraft Spruce so I could get that installed as well.

Reading up on the plans, it didn’t seem like this was all that difficult, but it is a bit nerve racking making that first cut into the bottom skin. Following the directions for the Gretz mount I first line up the backplate and match drill the holes on the flange using the spar as a guide. Next, I drill the holes in the backplate per the instructions making sure they are evenly spaced. The directions then say to drill the holes from the inside of the wing into the skin using the backplate as a guide. I can’t contort or get my drill in that confined space. Instead, I just put the skin on the wing, and cleco the back plate on the outside of the skin and match drilled the holes that way. (see photo). I also marked the hole locations for the pitot mast and the screw holes so I could drill those out with the backplate removed.

Using my harbor freight air-saw, I then rough cut the opening for the pitot mast. I then clecoed the backplate on the inside of the wing, then started to slowly file the opening back to match the backplate using a combination of files, die grinder, sandpaper, and finally scotchbright. Then I just needed to drill the screw holes into the skin.

Upon starting to prep the skins for priming, I realized I had a small “oops” with my J-channel. When match drilling it looks like I ended up drilling two holes right next to each other. To repair this, I decided to fabricate a doubler that I will install as I complete the bottom skin. Attaching photos below of my “fix”

Then its on to sanding the scarf joint, priming the skins and J-channel, and getting everything appropriately dimpled. Sorry, no timelapse of this work, but it’s not really any different than what I did for the top skin. With everything primed for the left wing, I just install the skin and cleco into place for now. All advice I got was that a second set of hands is really needed. That means I may just kick the bottom skins down the road a bit, possibly till I move the project to the airport?

Bottom Wing Skin – Part 4

Brian 0 Comment Bottom Wing Skins

Ok, so I’m totally jumping around in the build as I circle back to things I skipped due to weather and mental fatigue. Regardless, please forgive the fairly random order as I try to finish up the last few items before I focus on the fuselage.

With both ailerons completed, and one flap done, I needed to go back and install the gap fairings. This is a very straightforward install and the only newsworthy item to report is yet another new tool I ended up getting. Due to a post on VAF as well as a a sale on one of the major tool vendors, I ended up picking up a hydraulic-pneumatic squeezer by Numatx. This is a foot operated squeezer that uses hydraulic oil to actuate the squeezer. Benefits are the squeezer head is so much lighter and smaller, and you don’t have to adjust the RAM for each rivet length.

In practice, I find I do spend more time than I expected adjusting the ram / squeezer dies on the Numatx , however I really do like the operation of the unit.

Back to the gap fairings, I primed them and dimpled the #40 holes. I then dimpled the top wing skins using the Numatx squeezer. Next I install the gap fairing, and using the Numatx squeezer start to install the rivets in the skins. Next I cleco the gap fairing to the spar and change the dies and air pressure into the Numatx squeezer so I can set the AN470 3-x rivets. All goes together very quickly. Off camera I also finish up the other GAP fairings for the flaps and aileron on the other wing.

Aileron – Part 5

Brian 0 Comment Ailerons

With all the components of the left aileron now primed, I can begin the final assembly and prep work. First step is to dimple the ribs, and the part of the skins where the ribs attach. Next I back rivet the ribs to the skins.

Once the skins are prepped, I can cleco the entire aileron together again to fit the trailing edge and get it drilled. I’m also checking to make sure there is no twist or weird waves in the aileron at this stage with a straight edge.

Once the trailing edge has been drilled, I once again disassemble everything. I also double countersink the trailing edge as the final prep step for the ailerons. Then it’s time to begin final assembly.

First step is installing the components into the nose skin. Ribs and counterbalance assembly is installed and riveted into place in the nose skin. Next I install the spar and rivet that to the nose ribs using blind rivets. If I didn’t mention it already, I really like that pneumatic blind rivet puller. So much better than the manual one.

With the nose assembled, I then install the top skin between the nose skin and the spar. For some reason I felt that my bench and the aileron were sitting just a little high for me to reach over the skin to rivet, so I decided to put the work on the floor and bend over it to rivet. Seemed like a good idea, but later my back told me that I was being dumb. Regardless, it worked and I was quickly able to get the top skin riveted into place.

Next up is installing the bottom skin. Same deal as the top skin, but you have to stick your hand between the skins to hold the bucking bar. It’s been a number of years since I have been described as “skinny” or “small” so I’m amazed that I could get my hands in there to correctly hold the bucking bar. (I did have to remove my watch and ring). I’m not going to suggest that every rivet was perfect, but they were within spec.

I then installed the trailing edge and checked that everything looked nice ans straight. Next was to install the blind rivets in the nose into the counterbalance. and to set the rivets between the hinge bracket and spar. These AN470 rivets were a pain and I ended up with a smiley or two. As much as I would love to replace those rivets and do a better job, my fear is trying to remove those rivets in that cramped space would end up doing more damage than good, so they will stay smiley and all.

Last step is to install the trailing edge. I decided to use the VHB tape as well as the cleaveland trailing edge squeezer tool. I clean all the surfaces with acetone, then install the VHB tape on both sides of the trailing edge. I then install the TE and cleco everything together and press the edges together so the VHB tape will help hold.

Next I use the squeezer tool to start setting the TE rivets using the special dies. Pretty easy and looks decent enough. I have a feeling that back riveting will net a better result, but it is what it is. Once the TE is all riveted, I install the last few blind rivets on the edges of the ailerons. With that the aileron is completed and ready to install on the wing.