Delivery and Empennage Inventory

Brian 0 Comment Inventory

I finally have the first parts of my RV10.  Delivery was pretty uneventful (besides being the last delivery of the day).  Shipping was pretty straightforward and easy.  Got a call from them shortly after the box was picked up from Vans.  Gave me the price for delivery over the phone, confirmed the lift-gate service, and gave me the option of paying by check at the time of delivery or by CC over the phone.  Since I was going to be at Sun N Fun when it arrived in the area, they were ok with delaying delivery until I was home.

Of course the Driver was asking me questions about the box and being pretty social.

Spent about 4.5 hours getting everything out of the crate, and fully inventoried.  As others have said, they really do an amazing job of getting all that stuff into the box.  My crate did it’s job and kept everything safe, even with the shoe prints on the top of the box and a crack on one side.  The only complaint I have is the tape.  I’m not sure what industrial Duct tape they used, but holy cow that stuff has some stick to it.  Granted that’s great for making sure stuff doesn’t move in the box, but I was really hoping to keep all the protective Blue film on most of my skins.  The tape on the other hand didn’t agree with my plans, and a lot of my parts are now missing sections of the protective blue film.  Honestly does it really matter?  I’m eventually going to paint the RV, and will have to scotch bright the whole thing.   Guess not, but I will have to be careful.

Storage of all the parts is not the best.  I really need to clean off more wall space so I can hang some of the skins / parts.  I have just about everything put away for now, but have some concerns of where I’ll hang / put things to get them out of the way as I progress in my build.  Guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

 

Onward to building.

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Post Sun N Fun

Brian 0 Comment General

Wow, what a week.  Got back yesterday from Sun N Fun and awaiting the delivery of my Empennage Kit.  First off I had a blast at Sun N Fun.  I ended up spending most of my time over in the Workshop area learning a whole bunch of new techniques (Not all of them pertain to my RV-10).  Really didn’t walk away thinking I was doing anything really wrong on my practice kit, but got some tips on how to maybe make some of my things better.  Also realized that even some of the small dings will disappear when painted.

Learned a lot at the Electrical workshops, even if I won’t apply a lot of those things for a while.

Vendors booths were kinda crazy!  Tons to see.  I really didn’t even know what questions to ask or which vendors I needed to talk to.  The parts booths were amazing.  I’m sure I’ll be bringing a a shopping list next year!

The only down-side was the e-mail I got this morning letting me know the RV-10 was flown back to Oregon after Sun N Fun so I will not be able to take a DEMO flight.  This is very disappointing as I didn’t even take the time to sit in it while at Sun N Fun since I was scheduled to fly it on Wed.  Oh well.  Life happens so this means I’ll just have to work on my Empennage on Wed instead!

Off to Sun N’ Fun

Brian 0 Comment General

Off to experience Sun N’ Fun. I’m excited to meet a bunch of rv builders as well as learning everything I can that may help my build. Also got the call from the shipping company. Delivery of my kit is scheduled for Monday. Looks like I’m going to have a very exciting 2 weeks of fun.  Hopefully my wife doesn’t leave me!  

Decided to post an intro on the VAF site and already have a lot of feedback. Besides my cousin, also have a few other A&Ps that are interested in coming over. Can’t beat that!  Even had my post make it to the front page (even with a small autocorrect error. Oh well). 

Hopefully I have everything I need to get through the first half of the empennage kit and will do my best to take lots of photos. Debating doing the whole YouTube thing like Jason Ellis, or just a time lapse.   I may give YouTube a shot but sure I’ll feel like a fool doing it. 

RV10 Kit Ordered

Brian 0 Comment RV10

I submitted my order to VANS for my RV10 Empennage Kit last night.  While I was trying to wait until after I did a demo flight, I realized that honestly I had already decided last year that I was building the -10.  I also attended my local EAA chapter meeting and spoke with a number of really interesting people.  The one that really stuck in my head was from another local RV10 builder.  He is pretty far along in the build process (recently got his fuselage delivered) and so far he has not taken a flight in the RV10.  Do you really need to fly in a -10 before you build one?  Honestly you really don’t.

My current thought is this.  I’ve already completed my practice kit, and just about finished my toolbox.  Do I really want to wait another two weeks to order a  kit I already know I want to purchase, then wait even longer for it to be delivered?  NOPE!  I went ahead and ordered it and hopefully it arrives just after I get back from Sun n Fun.  Then I can get started and take my demo flight since it’s really getting beginning to be great weather outside.

Cleaning tools (rust removal)

Brian 0 Comment Shop and Tools

So while looking for a way to clean some of the rust off the steel bucking bars that came in the tools I purchased of the VAF forums, I came across a post talking about Evaporust.  After a few internet searches and videos, I started to see if it was something carried locally and was willing to give it a shot.

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Setup and cleanup was actually pretty easy.  Fill a container with the Evaporust product and insert the rusty items.  Granted most of my tools only had what I would call slight or light surface rust, I still wanted my tools to be in excellent shape.  I let them soak for about 2 hours, then pulled them out to see how they looked.  Rinse them off in fresh water, then dry them off and they are looking great!

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Realized I forgot a few bucking bars and figured I would throw some of my used clecos in the bucket to see how much of an improvement it would be.  The result is WOW.  For very little effort, the clecos look so much better, and actually are a bit easier to operate.

I’m letting everything dry off completely and will be spraying them all down with the Evapo-Rust rust block product to hopefully keep them from rusting up again.  This makes my initial purchase an even better value, and can’t wait till I have a few hours to take additional pictures / clean the remainder of my nasty used clecos!

 

UPDATE:  While this worked well for most of my clecos, I don’t think my copper clecos (1/8″) liked this process (or I just didn’t do a good job of rinsing them afterwards).  Something to keep in mind.

UPDATE 2:  While this did clean my silver clecos, they did re-rust. Honestly this was great to clean my bucking bars and other tools but probably not worth the time for the clecos unless you are aggressive with the rust block after.