I am not sure why Van's has you trim the one end of the angle like this, but I am sure that it will be become clear later in the project.

Cutting the angles in the angle....

What is great about the mill, is that dimensionally, I can get it more accurate than I can by hand. Additionally, once I draw it up, I can cut each one out the same as the next.  The left and right rudder stops are essentially the same.

Katelynn is mesmerized by large screen TV's, so it may serve as a valuable enterainer when I am trying to work on the plane.  She was watching Back To The Barnyard and ended up taking a nap while I was working in the garage.  GOOD GIRL!!!

The other item I upgraded on the Mill computer was added a second screen.  This way when I am drawing RV parts up in CAD, I can have an pdf version of the print on one screen and the CAD software on the other screen.  Man, that works great!!!  Now all I need is to upgrade my desk for that.  I have my eye on a desk / bench that will work great for that too.

After the mill trimmed the 1" side of the angle to dimension, I had also CAD drew in the two pilot holes called for in the print.  Here the mill is drilling those two pilot holes.  I sure wished I would have had this thing when working on the fuel tank "Z" brackets. 

on the 1 1/4" side of the angle, there is a little whoop'd-de-do (I am sure that is the technical term) in it.  You have to study the prints carefully, as the sides are at 3/4" and where the mill is cutting in the photo is 13/16".  I am sure that there is a reason for it, even though it isn't obvious to me yet.  I just cut it out to match the drawing specs.

Here is what the F-712D, Up Elevator Stop looks like when the mill completed the cutout.  The pilot holes are all way undersized so that they can be drilled to full size when clecoed into the fuselage.  This looks way better than what I could have done if I had to cut this by hand. 

For my high standards, the mill is working great.  This is the tool I should have had when I started the project.  My plan is to scour the fuselage prints for all the parts I have to fabricate so when I can get that hour or two in the garage, I can work on parts fabrication.

After I got the block drilled, I test fit it into the bulkhead side channel.  They fit perfectly.  The holes are nice and tight, the block sits straight.  Good to go.

Just another angle of the bearing block.

The next component I decided to fabricate was the F-711E, Down Elevator Stop / Spacer.  I drew the part up on CAD given the dimensions in the drawing.  I then used the mill to cut out the part from 2024T3 0.125" sheet stock I had laying around. I am not a CAD wizard, but it only took about 10 minutes to draw up in CAD and generated the G-Code to run the mill.

Here, the mill is cutting the part the F-711E out.

The great thing about the CNC mill is that the parts are way more accurate than what you can cut by hand.  The part below is accurate to Van's dimensions to within a couple of thousandths of an inch.

I am finding that the time cut out with the mill does not take that much longer considering that I would have had to cut this out by hand, try to straightened out all the lines with a file, and do significant deburring. The mill cut this out in under 10 minutes.  I took the part to the scotchbrite wheel and within 15 minutes I had a part, cut more accurately than I could do by hand.  I love that little benchtop CNC mill !!!!

Slow day, but I spent majority of the time trying to figure out where I left off on the fuselage.  I have drawn up in CAD several more parts that need fabrication, but there is no need to detail that until I actually get them cutout.

Once I thought that I got the bugs worked out of the first cut, I cut another pedal blank out of a piece of .130" 2024 aluminum sheet (The same stuff Van's uses).

I use a mist coolant / lubricant, however, it really isn't necessary for the feed speeds and material I am using.  The mist coolant is probably more helpful for removal of chips during the milling process.

The mill is currently cutting out the rivet holes.  I drew them up so that the mill would cut them 0.005"ish smaller than their final size would be.  The nice thing about the mill is that I used a 0.062" end mill and the mill cuts a circle to the exact dimensions I draw up in CAD.  This is nice if you don't have the exact size drill bit that you need (which I did, but hey, I have a CNC mill).

Just another shot of the rivet holes being cut...

Okay, here is what the final version looks like.  These pedals have the same dimensions as the original Van's supplied pedals.  I weighed the custom pedal against the factory original pedal and my pedal come in at 2 grams less than Van's originals.  I plan on having dual brakes, so I actually have 4 of these brake pedals cut out.

Just a close up o the previous picture.

Anyway, this was my first attempt to customize the RV using the mill.  I am pretty happy with how these brake pedals turned out.  After I assemble and drill them to their final locations, I plan on sending these off to get them chrome or nickel plated.

I cut the remaining pieces left to fabricate.  The F-705K's need a 4 degree bend....  How am I going to get a nice looking 4 degree bend without a brake?  I have access to a nice brake at work.  I may just haul them in with me.

Once you fabricate the F-605C (bar doubler), the F-705B (center section bar), and the F-705H (spacers), you have to match drill them to the pre-punched F-705A (rear spar attach bulkhead).  Anyway, that is a lot of material to drill through.  Back in my empennage days, I remember trying to drill through a large amount of material and not getting the drill bit straight.  That resulted in oblong holes and nothing sat straight.  In an attempt to not have that problem again, I decided that after I clamped all those pieces together, I would level everything out and drill the holes with the drill press.  This actually took some time, but worked great.

Here I am getting ready to drill the hole through the spacer.

What I ended up doing here for the hole going through the spacer was to first drill through ONLY the F-705A and the F-705B.  This allowed me to center the spacer in the hole.  I marked the center line of the spacer and then centered the line in the previously started hole.  When I was satisfied with alignment, I clamped everything together so the spacer wouldn't move and drilled through the F-705H and the F-605C.  Worked great.  I ran a AN3 bolt through it all to make sure that my hole was straight.  Looked good. 

Here you can see how thick all the pieces are parts are.  A slight angle on the drill bit through this much material would make a crappy hole.

Not as much got done today.  I spent the rest of my evening cleaning up the garage.  All this fabrication makes a lot of aluminum shavings.  I found  some upstairs in the bedroom the other day.  Time to clean up so I don't drag to much of that junk in.  Tami is understanding, but.....

Anyway, I found a low cost solution from Grizzly.com.  It was around $20 and I was pleasantly suprised how well it works.  It is not like me to find something I like that is also low cost.  This is a 5" vise brake.

The vise brake bent the 0.040" aluminum I was using for the ELT bracket with relative ease, accuracy, and without cracking the aluminum. 

Since the bracket is larger than the vise brake, I bent it in several stages moving back and forth so that everything kept a relatively even bend.

Once I got the flanges bent, I mounted the ELT base to the bracket and drilled for the #8 screws / nutplates.

Then I drilled the flanges that will attach this bracket to the baggage ribs.  I spaced the holes out so that I will have 4 screws on each side holding the bracket in place.

We started the day by locating all the seat pans and baggage compartment top skins.  Clecoed them all together and it started to look like an actual structure.

While I was match drilling all the skins, Kevin worked on fluting the F-715L (R) (Outboard Seat Ribs).  One of the gripes Kevin had with these ribs on his plane was that he was never quite able to get the outboard seat ribs to lay flat up against the F-704 center section.  From the pict below, you can sort of see that is because the rib is actually long enough that it is being prevented from laying flat by the inside radius of the F-704.

In came the metal shear. We trimmed approx 1/16" off the forward edge of the seat rib and re-installed.  You can see now that the rib now lays flat on the F-705 center section.  I thought that I had a better pict of this, but I don't.  When we drilled the match holes with the F-704 and clecoed the two pieces together it laid perfectly flat AND YES, there is still plenty of edge distance on the rib (in excess of 2 hole diameters).  If I would have taken the center section apart again, I would have more pictures to show.....

Kevin called it an early day to get home, so I was left with what to do next.  I fiddled around with my ELT mounting location, but couldn't (am still now sure) if I am going to put it in the baggage compartment bay I had previously reserved for it (More pictures to come).

Once I decided, no decisions could be made on the ELT, I moved on to making a mounting bracket for the strobe power supply.  I had some surplus 0.025" 2024 aluminum sheet leftover from the wing walk doubler in order to make the bracket.

Here is the basic steps I took to fabricate the strobe power supply mount.  You can't really tell from this picture, but the mount in this picture is actually a trapezoid shape.  Anyway, my basic steps were:

• Decided how long the mount was going to be forward to aft.
• Measured the forward and aft points of the baggage compartment bay widths where the mounting bracket would go.
• Added 20/32" for each flange that will secure the mounting bracket to the baggage ribs.
• The opposite flanges used to stiffen the bracket I added 10/32" for each flange to the overall bracket length.
• Before cutting the corners out to allow for bending of the flanges, I drilled a #12 hole in each corner which would serve as a 'relief' between the bends in the two flanges.

Fast forward to cutting out the flange relief's and making the bends....  You see that the bracket is not much larger than the actual power supply.  That is one reason I think I will be able to stick with the 0.025" thick bracket.  The actual power supply mounted to the bracket will add to the mounting brackets rigidity.  0.025" thick 2024 T-3 aluminum sheet is what Van's uses on their ELT / Strobe Brackets they sell.

Here is just the other side of the bracket.  It will pretty much fill that particular bay of the baggage compartment.

In order to lighten the bracket further, I decided I would cut a lightening hole in the center of the bracket.  I basically just marked "X" using the holes I transferred from the strobe power supply to the bracket to identify the center.

Post lightening hole cut....

The bracket fits in the luggage bay nice and tight.  I will add some holes on the flange (3 / side) to secure it to the baggage compartment ribs.

Here are the two different flanges I bent in the bracket in case you found my description confusing.

This bracket is very light and amazingly rigid.  I am going to make the ELT bracket out of a little heavier aluminum sheet since the ELT is slightly heavier and isn't as large (it won't stiffen the mounting plate like the strobe power supply will).

However, when you swing away the F-605C bar doubler, you see that there is one rivet hole that just goes through the F-705B (center section bar) and the F-705A rear spar.

The prints tell you to set a AN470AD4-6 rivet in this hole.  It is somewhat cryptic, and I am surprised I didn't miss it.

After I set the rivet, I repositioned the F-605C into position and you can see there is plenty of room between the F-705B and the F-605C.

On the F-705 bulkhead, there are several rivet holes that need to remain open at this stage of building.  I carefully reviewed the prints again and again, and put yellow tape over the holes that did not get rivets.

I am preparing the seating area and the baggage area to have fully removable floors by nutplating the floors. I am going to have items such as strobe power supplies, ELT, and wiring that I may need to get to someday.  By nutplating the floors, i won't have to drill out all the rivets to access, repair / replace those components.

Once I got the F-705 bulkhead riveted together, I started clecoing the the center fuselage together.  It felt pretty nice to have something to show for my efforts today that was a larger than ribs, angles, and nutplates.

Just another angle...  Woohoo, big deal.

Kevin Faris is supposed to come down tomorrow.  He is hopefully bringing down his metal shear to add to my fabrication tools for the project.

By 10 pm, all the parts have been primed.  I really like the AKZO primer, but man is the at stuff time intensive. 

Not a lot of pictures to show for my efforts....

Anyway, $600 later (we never get off cheap when we trek to town), 7 hours of shopping and driving, and we have returned home ready to dive into our plumbing mess.  When we got into our plumbing mess, we found out that the plumber did not cement the drain piping together that is located inside the wall.  Great!!!!  We had to cut out a section of the back wall of the cabinet and sheet rock.  Sure enough, the PVC drain pipe came off in my hands.

Well, when we took the piping apart, the piping was half plugged with what has to be the nastiest smelling gunk I have ever come across.  This makes cleaning the cat litter box smell pretty good.  Anyway, Tami dove in to help and you can see below, how happy she was to do it.  She always tells me that she would rather do home improvement jobs than rivet on the RV.  She didn't admit it, but I think I found a home improvement task in which she would rather work on the plane.

We actually got the drain pipe cemented, the new garbage disposal mounted and working, and as a side benefit, I got the dishwasher working again.  The dishwasher drain was plugged and wouldn't let the dishwasher drain (it was because of the corroded old garbage disposal).

Anyway, Tami was thrilled!!!  Yesterday, she started a "honey do" list for things around the house that needed fixed.  I got a two for one fix today.  And, it DOESN'T STINK ANYMORE!!!!

Like I said, sometimes, you just don't get to build......

• I drew a centerline on the F-705L, marked the first hole in 1/4" from the edge of the strip and drilled one #40 hole in that location.
• I clecoed the F-705L to the F-705F channel and lined up the center line in the row of pre-punched rivet holes.  I colored in the last hole with a sharpie marker and then removed the F-705L to ensure that I had the last hole 1/4" from the edge of the F-705L.
• I drilled all the F-705L holes to #40 using the F-705F channel as my guide.
• Removed the F-705 L to transfer a couple of holes to the F-705K.

Here is the first #40 hole I drilled between the F-705L and K.  For placement of the F-705L, I positioned it up on the F-705K right where the F-705K the 4 degree bend was made.  The pictures below show better what I mean.

I basically drilled three holes between the F-705L and K.  One at each end and one in the center so that I could cleco those two parts to the F-705F channel and drill the remainder of the holes.

Here is how the F-705K & L sit on the F-705F channel.

Just another angle.

This picture shows my left to right alignment of all the pieces and parts.  I couldn't be happier.  Both left and right seat adjustments lined up this good.

While everything was clecoed together, I countersunk the F-705K for the flush rivets it will receive later.

I won't get into just how many times I have fabricated these angles....  Anyway, lets just say it was more than twice!!!  Anyway, one of the last things I had to do with the F-705G angles is to mill / drill a slot in angle to account for the canopy latch.  I chucked up a 3/8" end mill and put the angle in a cross vice mounted to the drill press.  With a little Tap Magic cutting fluid and some patience, I got some great looking slots cut into the angles.  The drill press doesn't make a very good milling platform, but it still did a significantly better job cutting the slot than I could have gotten with drilling a series of holes and doing lots of filing....

Here is shot of what my cross-vice setup looks like.  Until I get my bench mill, this did an acceptable job.

I clecoed the angle back into the F-705F channel and then filed the slot with all the parts installed to more or less make the hole  look uniform with all the parts.

Just another shot....

Here is what they angles looked like from below.  I had to dress up an area on this angle on the bottom left corner there.  On these angles, I didn't cut the 1/8" taper like Van's calls out.  I clecoed the angle to the F-705F channel and then sharpie marked the angle to taper the angle so it more or less lined up with the taper on the F-705F channel.  It isn't perfect, but it looks pretty good.

This  side, looks better, if only the picture was fuzzy.....

If I wouldn't have had to spend  3 hours re-fabricating botched F-705G angles, I would have gotten a lot farther.  Ooh well, not expensive mistakes, just time consuming.  Now I think I am going to move back up to the center section and finish some odds and ends up there.

I am getting really close to being able to prime and assemble something here.

On select seat ribs, I marked for provisions to accept a DG-10 size adel clamp with enough clearance to the bottom of the rib, I could use up to a size DG-12 adel clamp.  Yes again, these will weigh slightly more than say a Ty-wrap base that is attached via double sided sticky tape, but then again, I won't have to worry about them falling off in two years.  Once I got one seat rib layed out the way I wanted for the adel clamps, I drilled the holes to size.  Then for all the remaining ribs, I clecoed them together (back to back) and then drilled out the same hole locations for the other seat ribs.

• No, I didn't do this to all the ribs.  I believe I drill 4 of them for adel clamps.
• Yes, it is all about symmetry and craftsmanship.  I don't want it to look like a half baked plan....

I am also drilling all the seat ribs for nutplates.  The entire seating area floor will be capable of being removed for removal, replacement, repair of components without the need to drill out the rivets.  Yeah, it may add a little weight, but it won't be much.  Without a nutplate jig, I have to drill for the nutplates using a sacrificial nutplate and clecoes.

For the F-705J angle, you have to lay out a line of rivets to attach it to the back side of the F-705F channel.  Van's has you lay out of line of nine rivet for the F-705J.  Well, my rivet fan has provisions for ten rivets.  So magically, my F-705J angle has 10 rivets in it.  I measured in 1/4" on both sides and then spaced out the rivet fan to hit the first and last rivet holes.  This is one of the few places that neither the F-705F or the F-705J is pre-punched, so you can more or less do what you want here (within reason, of course).  I don't think that I would try to get by with three rivets here.

There are some particulars here on the F-705J to pay attention to:

• You can't just draw a line down the center of the angle to lay out your rivets.  This angle sits 1/8" above the F-705F channel.  If you center the rivet line on the angle, you won't be able to rivet the F-705J to the F-705F as your rivets will be very near the top of the bend for the F-705F.  Note the print shows that you lay out the rivet line up 1/4" from the bottom edge of the angle.

I just ran a #40 drill bit through the holes in the rivet fan and clecoed as I went.

Since the F-705J angle sits off the F-705F channel by 1/8", I found a 1/8" thick angle, and put it under the F-705J and clamped them both into place.

The real trick I found with the F-705J is that there is no real mention in the prints and in the instructions as to where to place the F-705J on the F-705F channel.  Since this angle holds the seat back in a particular position, it is kind of important that all the pieces and parts line up.  So what I did here is centered up the F-705K on the F-705F channel.  Then I centered / lined up the F-705J with the F-705K.  Clamped it into place and then drilled the initial holes of the F-705F to F-705J to #40.  After completing that, I went and drilled out all holes of the F-705F and F-705J to size #30.  Hopefully, everything will line up.

If you have followed my log entries, you know I had some problems with my original F-705G angles.  When I cut the new angles, I cut them them as straight angles and did not put the 1/8" taper on them as called out in the prints.  After I had drilled them to the F-705F channel, I marked the taper on the F-705G angle with a sharpie marker.  Then I set up the drill press to mill the edge of the angle to get the desired taper on the F-705G.  This worked really well, but I did have to take it pretty slow since the drill press is not a real good milling platform.  Anyway, I got the taper on the F-705G angles to match (almost perfectly), the taper on the F-705F channel.  I only had to do a very little amount of filing to remove the milling marks left by the end mill.

It seems like I am working on a lot of little things for the center fuselage and that it is taking me a long time to finish any one thing.  I am hoping with some of this prep type stuff (i.e.: drilling for nutplates, adel clamps, etc) that when this starts going together, it will be fast and furious.....

I got a dolly that can be used to mount the drill press to so that I can somewhat move it around the garage.

UPDATE:  This seems to be okay for moving the drill press around, however, what I don't like about it is that you do lose some stability of the drill press.  Since I already have the drill press on this dolly, I am going to leave it there for now.  If I was to do this over again, I probably would leave this off of my shopping list.  However, if you absolutely need to be able to move a drill press around the shop, this will do it.  

I also added a milling table to supplement the cross-vice that Kevin is letting me borrow.

UPDATE:  This milling table is a piece of crap.  Okay, I may be a little harsh here...  Maybe is just isn't that great.  It seems to settle out a little when you throw a 40 pound milling vise on top of it.  It probably doesn't help that a drill press doesn't make a good mill, however, my results with this table were basically so-so.  The cross vice that Kevin is letting me use works a heck of a lot better than this table (except when trying to mill an edge at an angle).

I went crazy and also got this clamping kit.  I currently have to scrounge for hardware to mount something to the drill press.  This kit is specifically made for that purpose.  And, it was relatively cheap so I am not out of a ton of money if it don't work that well.

UPDATE:  The clamping kit works great.  You kind of have to scratch your head though to figure out what clamping combination it takes to secure something to the drill press table.

I also got a small end mill set.  The sizes here are hard to have perspective on.  The smallest end mill is 1/8".  I went with 4-flute end mills hoping that these won't chatter as much as the 2-flute end mills.

UPDATE:  The end mills work well.  The 4-flute end mill is not actually recommended for aluminum, but they work well.  I find that I have to stop periodically to clear the mill of chips.  I ordered some premium 2-flute end mills for work on the planes aluminum parts.

Grizzly also had a decent reamer set.  For the little use I will put them through, I am sure that they will be fine.  I don't believe that there are very many cases where I will have to ream parts out.  I know of two cases where you need to ream some bushings to 1/4".  Anyway, these weren't that expensive.

UPDATE:  These are SHARP.  While removing the shipping plastic, I sliced my fingers open.  Ouch.  For the price, if they work, this was a good deal compared to what else I have seen out on the web.

I also ordered a "over / under" reamer set.  This reamer set has has one each reamer that is + or - 0.001" of the more popular reamer sizes and can be used to allow either a slip fit or a press fit.  I have a couple of places I am looking to do a press fit.  aka:  Delrin bushing for an aileron stop, etc.  These may come in handy for something like that.

I broke down and ordered a bench top CNC mill.  I have a few ideas for some parts upgrade for the RV.  A couple of ideas I have, I haven't seen other builders or companies make.  I will keep those ideas to myself until I have actually made one of them....  Anyway, I got engrossed in the mill idea after I saw the accuracy that could be had just by using a drill press and a cross vise.  With CNC, the possibilities are only limited by the imagination (and table size....  I didn't get a huge mill).

YES, I know that this is NOT necessary for the project...   Being kind of a computer geek, this is right up my alley.  I look forward to using this to improve the build quality of some of my projects parts....   Look for those parts in future web log entries.

Okay, now you have to have some way to clamp it all down.  I ordered two vises that I should be able to use on the mill.  This is a precision 4" vise.  This is a pretty big vice and it is heavy.  Something like 40 pounds.  It seemed to settle out the X-Y table I bought for the drill press. 

I also got this smaller milling vise.  This is probably more appropriately sized for a small mill.  This vise has v-grooves in it to hold tubular stock in both the horizontal and vertical orientations.

Merry Christmas to me.  Anyway, I took the evening off after I got done spending my money.  We were having an ice storm and I had to put Tami's mini-van in the garage so we didn't have to chip ice for an hour the next morning.

I couldn't hold the drill that straight even if I wanted to.....

Once we got the F-705G angles match drilled to the bulkhead side channels, we sharpie marked the slot needed to allow the canopy latch to pass through.  Kevin had brought down a cross-sliding vise, some end mills, and some adjustable reamers.  Anyway, we chucked up the end mill and milled the hole out for the canopy latch. 

I am sold on the end mill.  It sure is nice to have the right tool for the job.  (That excludes my hunk of junk drill press).  Anyway, the slot looks pretty good.  So far, Kevin and I were feeling pretty good about our progress, but that changed about an hour later.....  Read on....

A cameo shot of Kevin installing the control column so we could check it for fit.  We were also trying to scope out wire runs to get all the wiring from the wing to the forward fuselage.  As I understand it, the snap bushing locations Van's gives you could be bigger in order to accommodate all the wires and tubing that has to go forward.

A status picture.  I can actually visualize this could actually be an airplane someday....

Okay, here is where we (I) ended up taking two steps backward for everything we did earlier today.  I had noticed that the F-705G-R angle looked crooked after we drilled it.  Sure enough it was crooked.  It apparently slipped under the clamp and now was not sitting flat against the bottom side of the top channel (F-705F).  Okay, that was a builder induced problem.  Well, I went over to look at the other angle F-705G-L and I noticed that the top flange of the angle was not laying flat on the F-705F top channel, but everything looked like it was drilled straight.  What the heck????  I was in such disbelief, I forgot to shoot a picture of it.

Okay>>>  This is where I introduced Kevin to my HIGH TECH NUCLEAR MAINTENANCE TROUBLESHOOTING SKILLS.  I asked Kevin if this would pass the "Sesame Street Test".  I got the deer in the head lights >>>  HUH?!?!?  So I explained the Sesame Street theory and it does something like this:  If it looks like it doesn't look right, it probably isn't.  We had another example were some holes didn't line up properly.  It didn't pass the Sesame Street test, but we mis-drilled the holes anyway....  These happened to be a  couple of holes for the cover support ribs on the center section.  Anyway, I will detail my fix to that in a later log entry.
I removed the mis-fitting F-705G-L angle and put it up against a machinist square.  What the HECK????  It wasn't extruded to a 90 degree angle.  You can see friggin daylight under the square.

I mean it is not just a little air gap here.  No wonder the F-705F channel on top looked like it had twist in it.

No, I am not chastising the angle i.e.: "bad angle". I did, however, want to throw it out in the snow bank behind the house which is now a snow-ice cube.....

I thought that maybe it was something I did to the F-705G-L angle while I had it in the vise and doing the fabrication so I got the original stock out and put the square to it.  The hole friggin length of it was mis-formed.

I had some other small pieces of the AA6 angle from the wing kit left over and you can see that they were properly formed.  This angle looks great.  I will be re-fabricating the F-705G's.  One builder induced error and one material problem.  What are the chances?????

We assembled the seat ribs and the baggage compartment ribs to come up with a strategy for wiring all equipment that is going to be going into the plane.  You can see some of my sharpie notes on the ribs where I need to enlarge holes or drill additional ones.  I think I have a plan that will ensure I won't be introducing a ton of shavings after I have this thing skinned.

Just another angle.  Where are my seats???  Lets put them in.  I promised Tami that we would get the first engine start in before Christmas.  (I just didn't tell her which one, and I don't think that she picked up on that subtle omission)

By the end of the day, Kevin and I had come up with a full "to-do" list.  We had to call it quits as I ran out of whiteboard space.

We ended up not getting as much behind us as we both had hoped, but we did make some good headway when developing a strategy on how we (I) would handle upcoming installations of wiring.

Next, I moved on to rivet the F-704C's and F-704D's to their respective center sections.  What I found worked the best here was to use the c-frame to set the rivets.  A couple of 2" x 4"s served to hold the center section level with respect to the c-frame.

Once I got the center section properly positioned, I WHACKED the c-frame with a hammer.  This worked pretty well.  I actually had quite a little control over setting the rivets with a hammer.

Once I set all the rivets with the c-frame, I went back to set the flush rivets that attach the center section vertical bars to the center section.  I had previously countersunk the vertical bars to accept the flush AN426AD4-14 rivets.  I ended up setting those rivets with the c-frame as well.  I just put a flush rivet set in the c-frame, positioned the center section, and WHACKED it with a hammer again.  The -14 rivets were the longest rivets I have and they are still short.  From what I can tell, they do not perform a structural function.  They just hold the vertical bar in place while you attach the wings to the fuselage.

This was the forward center section.  Looks like a serious structure when you start to put all those rivets in.

While I was working on the center section, I installed the 18 or so nutplates.  That only took a few minutes.

Completing what I wanted to work on with the center section, I moved on to the F-705.  It probably took me over  an hour to locate the majority of the parts for the F-705.  I spent another two hours removing vinyl and deburring parts.  No exciting pictures to be had there.

One of the first parts I fabricated on the F-705 was the F-605C doubler.  You have to taper the doubler down to a rounded point with a 1/4" radius.  The print shows that the bar doubler is supposed to be 12 1/2" long.  Mine was actually almost 13" long.  I looked around various builders web sites and I didn't see anyone mention trimming this doubler so I left the length alone and marked the taper according to the print dimensions.

Ready to trim....

Cut, debur, file, debur some more, then repeat. After nearly an hour and a half, the bar doublers were transformed to look like like the drawing on the print.

The next fabrication task was to fabricate the F-705G- L/R angles since I am going with a tip-up canopy.  Now this seems like a simple task on the surface. I forecast another hour or two of cutting, deburring, filing, etc.

You have to make two of these angles and Van's instructions do not say to much about fabricating them, but reviewing the prints, I got the feeling that the two angles were NOT going to be the same.  For example, there is a 1/8" taper on the angle on the left side.  Van's makes reference that the "LEFT SHOWN".  Hmm, does that mean that the RIGHT one is different?  Looking at the print, it looks like the taper is to the outside of the F-705 on both the left and the right sides.  I am assuming that is because the fuselage is starting to taper aft of this bulkhead and the 1/8" is to make sure that it doesn't interfere with the fuselage skin.

The other thing that I noticed with fabricating the angle, is that this is being made out of AA6-187x2x2 1/2.  The print shows that the shorter flange is 1 3/4".  When lining up the angle on the F-705D Bulkhead Side Channel, it appears that if you leave the angle 2", that it will be pretty close to a row of rivets.  Trimming the angle to 1 3/4", it places that angle between the row of rivets on the F-705D.

UPDATE (12/25/07):  After fabricating my F-705G angles for a second time, you DO NOT need to trim the shorter flange of the angle to 1 3/4".  It will not interfere with any rivets in the F-705.  The only reason I can see to trim the angle to 1 3/4" would be for weight savings.

First F-705G (left side).  I have it marked on cut the angle to the 1 3/4".

You can see the difference in the angles.  The left one has been trimmed to the 1 3/4" and the one is just waiting for its turn at the band saw.

Hard to see here but, the left one has a taper on the left side and the right one has a taper on the right side.  This thick angle is time consuming to fabricate.  Two hours or so, and the F-705G's are cut out.

What a long day. I was busy all day and don't feel like I have a lot to show for it.  On the F-705, so far, there is a lot of time fabricating parts

Next thing I did is drilled and countersunk the center section flanges for nutplates.  There is like 18 of these...  PIece of cake. I was having wing flash backs.

The center section has two holes in the center that need to be laid out and drilled in preparation for snap bushings.  They lay in a line for attaching inboard seat rib.  Yeah, I had to double check this.  That is the way Van's has it.

I actually drilled out the F-704 and the F-716 at the same time.  Otherwise, the unibit may have wanted to shift or elongate the hole.

Van's has other holes that need enlarged too.  This hole (between the 3rd and 4th rivet lines) had a pilot hole so it was just a matter of drilling it out to the proper size.

Ditto for the other side.

The cover support ribs below had pre-drilled pilot holes that need to be enlarged to accommodate electrical, brake and fuel lines.  There is a problem here with the holes.....  Can you see it?

I (actually Kevin) didn't notice this until we clecoed them to the F-704F.  All the holes should line up between the 4 cover support ribs.  You can see that the holes for the F-782B (small ribs) and the F-783B (large ribs) were drilled out opposite of each other.  The only thing I can think of here is that when Van's pre-punched the pilot holes on the small ribs, they had them in their punch press backwards.

Anyway, they are $3 each, so I ordered two new ones.  Even if the pilot holes are backwards, I should be able to enlarge the holes so that they match the large ribs now that I know what I am looking for.

UPDATE (12/25/07):  I got the new cover support ribs (F-782, aka: small ribs) from Van's.  They had pilot holes that were the same as the original ribs I had.  I.E.: backwards to the larger F-783B ribs.  I drilled the new rib holes differently than how Van's had them pre-punched.  See future log entry as to how they turned out.

I fabricated two center section spacers F-904J from some AT6-05/8x3/8 stock.  I took some time with them and got them exactly equal in length and the ends cut square.  These turned out really well.

DWG 22 has you remove some rib material for clearance of the control column and on two of the four inboard ribs, you cut a 2" notch out of the rib so the control column can be installed / removed. 

Here is what they looked like after nibbling out rib material to enlarge the holes necessary for clearance of the control column.

Here you can see the 2" notch cut out of the inboard two ribs.  There is a seat rib access plate (F-716B) that holds the removed rib section back in place.

Just another shot.

Anyway, Kevin and I got a lot done.  By the time we were done for the day, I was numb.  I had to take notes to recall everything we got done.  It definitely goes faster when you have someone helping you that knows how to build a plane already.  Tami was thrilled beyond belief.  She didn't have to help all day long....  She wants Kevin to move into the spare bedroom until the plane is done.

Van's instructions basically say rivet firewall components together.  Not a lot of detail....  After looking at other builders web sites, the method pretty much used is to lay the firewall down on a bunch of blocks and put your back rivet plate on top of other blocks and back rivet everything together.  For the edge stiffeners, you can get a squeezer in and do those.  They were no brainers.  Anyway, I had a couple of problems with riveting the firewall:

• Most of the rivet callouts appears to be 1/2 to 1 length short of what they should be.  This was somewhat frustrating in that when I used the size that Van's called out, the shop heads turned out really short.  When I bumped the rivets up one size, I got the right sized shop heads, but I ended up having to drill several rivets out as they would tend to bend over.  I ended up drilling out more rivets on the firewall than I have probably drilled out on the whole rest of the plane.  I ended up getting nice looking rivets, but it was a long painful process.
• It is very difficult to get the firewall to lay down flat on the back rivet plate.  Because of that, I had several rivets set high and had to be drilled out.  Good thing about these, they drill out pretty easy...

I bucked a couple of rivets on the engine mount brackets and the challenge I had here is that there is really no good way to hold the firewall while you do this.  The best thing I found was to put blocks on both sides of the firewall and then clamp the blocks down to the table.  It didn't totally immobilize the firewall, but it held it well enough I could buck a couple of the hard to get at rivets.

The reason that I bucked a couple of the engine mount rivets was that it was next to impossible to get at them with a rivet gun and it was also impossible to get the firewall to lay flat against the back rivet plate.  What are the other options???

Anyway, I bucked the two rivets on the lower left of this mount.  I am really happy with the shop heads on all of my engine mounts.  I used rivets that were 1 size larger than Van's calls out and all of my shop heads look great.

When I got to the F601J  angles, the rivets along the inside angle are impossible to back rivet because you can't get your rivet gun in along the angle and you can't buck the rivets because you just end up disfiguring the shop heads and gouging the inside radius of the F601J angle.  What I ended up doing here is setting the firewall on the back rivet plate and taking the shaft out of my C-frame dimpler, installing a flat rivet set and striking the C-frame shaft with a hammer to set the shop head.  It actually only took 3 or 4 blows with a hammer to form the shop heads.  Considering the rivets set on the inside radius of the F601J angle, they turned out pretty well.  They are not great, but they are good....

Anyway, the firewall is done.  For a structure that looks like it would be easy to rivet, it was sure time consuming and I ended up drilling out a ton of rivets in order to get them right.

After radiusing the F-601J angle, I clamped it up against the F-601M-1 (firewall bottom stiffener) and the F-601N (center stiffener) in order to match drill the holes.  Now a couple of things here that I was attentive to.

• The F-601M-1 stiffener (bottom stiffener) is thicker than the F-601N stiffeners.  Therefore, if you just clamp the F-601J angle to the stiffeners, it is possible to clamp it at a slight angle which could result in some funky holes through the thick F-601J angle.
• When you assemble this group of parts for final installation, there are two gussets that sit underneath the F-601J angles.  Since there was no way to hold alignment of those gussets while drilling the F-601J angles, I removed them (to be all drilled together later).
• In order to properly align the F-601J angle to the center stiffener (F-601N), I placed the F-601G gusset underneath the F-601J angle (just far enough to rest the F-601J angle on and accessible enough that I could pull it back out after clamping the F601J angle with the C-clamp). 

Pretty happy with the look and feel of the angles (until later) read on.

Everything sat just as I had planned.

I drilled just enough holes to hold the F-601J angles with clecoes, then I removed the clamps.  I then re-assembled with F-601J with the two gussets in place and clecoed.  With the three holes drilled as shown, it was enough holes to hold the gussets and angle in place so that I could finish drilling.

A picture of the F-601H gusset in place.  I am pretty amazed (at times) how accurate Van's parts can be.  You can see how well everything lines up.

The F-601G gusset in place.  Like I said, until you get some holes drilled in the F-601J angles, it would be almost impossible to keep the gussets accurately lined up during the drilling process.

Okay, here is where I got that sinking feeling.  If you read on the DWG-19 below, you can see that it says to leave a 3/32" gap between the top face of the F-601M stiffener and bottom of the F-601J angle.  If you do not radius the bottom of the F-601J angle, I will bet that will be pretty darn close to that 3/32".  Van's instructions just state to "use the dimension given on DWG 19 for vertical alignment."  I guess that I could also argue, in Van's defense, that the print area highlighted at the top of this page is not actually a dimension.  It would have been nice, however, if those two instructions could have been in the same location on the print.

So, the question is, what was Van's true intention here?

I looked forward in the fuselage (DWG-23) to see if this 3/32" will be a problem later on, I cannot see conflicts, but I am going to ask around.

UPDATE (11/20/07):  I did some asking around about the F601J angles.  I was correct in that the only thing that these angles connect to in the mid fuselage is the floor stiffeners (F-772B).  What I was told is that it is important for the F601J angles to lay flat on the firewall (which means that it is important to properly radius the back side of the F601J angles to fit inside the F-601M-1 (bottom firewall stiffener).

The next two pictures are from flying RV-7's.  It is hard to tell, however, it looks like the F-601J angles are radiused up against the F-601M stiffener.

When I zoom in on this picture of this guys installation, it sure looks like the F-601J angle sits on the F-601M stiffener too.

Moving on, I went to debur the stainless steel firewall.  The firewall is pretty rough on leather gloves and 3M de-burring wheels.  When I was deburring, it ground down these deburring wheels like wood on a lathe.  They eventually got the firewall de-burred, but that stainless is hard to debur.

During countersinking of the firewall stiffeners, some of them (F-601D and F-601N) were thin enough that the countersink pilot doesn't have enough material to hold the cutter.  As in the wings, I drilled and clecoed a scrap piece of aluminum to hold the countersink cutter.  Worked great, as usual.

After 10 hours, I had everything drilled, de-burred, and countersunk.  I am still not complete, I still need to dimple the firewall.

After cutting the angles to length, I clamped them together.  One of my developing pet peeves is that when I have to fabricate two identical components, I have a hard time making them look identical.  So to solve that, I clamped the two angles together.  I broke out the Vixen file to dress up the edges.  As expected, the band saw somewhat mangled the edge being cut.  I used the vixen file to straighten and dress up the edges.  After some significant filing, the angles started looking pretty good.

I used  two clamps to hold the angles together.  When filing, I secured the angles in the bench vice.

After 20 minutes of filing, this one edge started looking really good...

After over an hour of filing, I was getting close.

OKAY, when starting the firewall, Van's makes mention that the stainless steel firewall can be very sharp.  I am slow to learn.... Within 10 minutes, I was lining up parts on the firewall and couldn't figure out where all this "red" stuff was coming  from.  Sure enough, a quick scan of my hands and I had sliced my finger open.  It wasn't like a paper cut in that when you get a paper cut, it hurts.  Slicing my finger on the stainless firewall, I didn't even feel it when it happened.

For those unfortunate bleeding incidents (especially on your hands), having a bottle of New Skin around is very helpful.  It is a flexible bandage which worked great at preventing me from re-opening my new injury.

The rest of the day while handling the firewall, I religiously kept my mechanics gloves on.  The firewall is so sharp, I could see slivers of leather throughout the day as the firewall was doing its best to cut through my gloves.

Alright, after recovering my minor trauma injury, I moved on to fabricating Brake Plate (F-601TD). This is only needed for the tail dragger flavor of the RV-7...  I cut the brake plate to dimensions as called out in DWG-19 from .063 2024-T3 Alclad.  Next thing was to figure out how to align the reinforcement plate to be centered over the pre-punched holes in the firewall.

I basically drew vertical and horizontal lines extending from the center rivet holes.

I also drew horizontal and vertical center lines on the brake plate.  I then overlaid the two sets of center lines and clamped into place.

I bought these large vise grip clamps and they worked great to hold the brake plate into position.  Once I got it locked down and verified that everything was lined up, I flipped the firewall over and drilled through the pre-punched holes in the firewall, clecoing as I went.

The larger holes are drilled out to 7/16".  I used a well Boelube’d unibit to drill these holes to size.

Everything looks well centered and squared up.  Good thing, I would hate to have to replace the firewall due to a boo boo.

Next I fabricated the F-601E-1 stiffener using angle stock from AA6-063x3/4x3/4.  This was pretty straight forward.  I can't figure out why Van's didn't have this angle pre-cut and pre-punched like all the other angles on the firewall.

Next task was to fabricate the F-601P spacers which go under the upper engine mounts and above the F-601D stiffeners.

Once I got the spacers prepped to my satisfaction, I clamped them in place using the vice grip clamp I used earlier, flipped the firewall over and drilling through the pre-punched holes in the firewall.

The spacers just fit in there perfectly. 

After about 10 hours of fabricating and drilling, this is what I have to show for it.

I wonder if I will ever finish this project???

• Rivethead Aero unit is fully sealed.  No disassembly is required and it is environmentally sealed.  If for any reason it fails, Rivethead Aero will replace the unit.
• It is Nickel plated and is a thing of beauty.  The form and finish of the unit is fabulous.
• Rivethead Aero's was more expensive and I always like the things that are the most expensive.  

Just another angle.  This should really dress up the tail wheel. 

This thing is supposed to be environmentally sealed.  I sure wish they would have sent the drawings of how this thing is put together.

Just a pict of the other end.

I also got their linkage arm so it matched the tail wheel linkage.  I is also nickel plated and looks great.

If you are interested in checking out Rivethead Aero, their website is at:

http://www.rivethead-aero.com/

I also recommend checking into Terry Jantzi's tail wheel linkage at his web address (I believe that Wayne Hadath is now making the RV/Steering Link):

http://www.justplaneworks.com/

I am getting into the fuselage frame of mind.  I have barely looked at the parts in the crate and I am starting to think about interior, the radio stack, etc.  I can already see the $$$'s flowing out of my bank account at an alarming rate.

I am nowhere near done with the right (or left) wing, but I couldn't resist opening the crate and taking a look.  Van's has always done an excellent job crating the kits I have gotten so far.  They must have this down to a science.  Subway used to coin the term "sandwich artist", I think Van's has some "crating artists".

I quickly found the infamous "bags of parts" and decided that I would start inventorying and organizing them.  These tiny parts always take forever to organize.  Besides, for the most part, it is "mindless work" and I felt up to the task.

Ooohh, what is that round, black thing sitting on the table by the can of Mountain Dew?  Sure looks like a tailwheel to me....  Just last year at this time, I still hadn't bought the empennage kit.  My how things have change in 10 months.  As long as you keep at it, amazingly enough, assembly of the plane parts does progress.

These bins work fairly well unless you need to change the locations of the dividers as I found out tonight.  I got wound up once or twice while going through the bags.  I would fill a particular size of rivet and then a couple of bags later, there was another bag of the same size rivets.  You would think that Van's would figure out how much of a particular thing (rivets, for example) you need and put it all in the same bag.  If a hardware stores organized their parts the same way Van's organizes these bags, they would never sell any hardware.  Even trying to separate the parts out was mindless so it was a perfect activity for a Friday night.

Five or so hours, and I still have a ton of parts to sort out.  I haven't even dug anything else out of the crate yet.  I found several errors (in my favor) for bags of parts, so I probably better inventory the whole kit soon so that if I am short, I can get Van's to rectify the situation before I have to pay for the part again.

I see Van's listed on their website that as of yesterday, they have sold 2000 RV-7/7A kit starts.  That is just incredible!!!  Van's has a good thing going with their planes.

I was bidding on Brady ID Pro Plus wire labeler's for labeling wires, connectors, etc. on the airplane.   I lost several of these labelers by being outbid by less than a $1.50.  I ended up with this one for $207.50 and it is brand new.  It is on the high side of labelers selling on e-bay, but few of them have been brand new.  The lowest price I could find from a retailer on this item was $385.00, so I guess I am still money ahead.

I am also bidding on a Semco Sealant Gun (pistol grip) for working with tank sealant.  Since I haven't done any work with tank sealant yet, I should be able to get some good use out one.  I have another several days to see if I am the successful bidder on that.  Dan Checkoway raves about the sealant gun he was given for helping out another RV builder sealing his tanks.  His information on his web site has yet to steer me wrong.

Today, some of my "steam gauges" came from Van's.  I am going with conventional gauges on my instrument panel and I am trying to pay for these as I go.  I always like it when UPS or Fedex leaves me a package in the garage...  Just like Christmas for the last 5 months.

Each instrument was individually packaged, wrapped in bubble wrap and in a sealed bag with desiccant.  While I was ordering gauges, I also bought some nut rings for mounting the instruments to the panel.

Here is my instrument line-up for instruments received today.  Add a turn coordinator (received earlier) and I am starting to have an instrument panel.  These instruments are very nice for the money.  I hope that they work as good as they look.

For my airspeed indicator, I went with a True Airspeed Indicator.  Let me show you how ignorant I am on this instrument.  I went with a true airspeed indicator so that the white scale on the lower left of the instrument will show you a corrected airspeed based on your altitude and the outside temperature.  OKAY>>>  Turn the dial>>>  The "P. ALT" (pressure altitude) changes and the white scale below changes.  Well, the dang thing says that you have to enter your temperature too.  HUH?   If I understand this correctly, you turn the dial to put your "P. ALT" to the temperature (that is in centigrade>>  Who uses that???).  So looking at the gauge picture below, say I am at 6000 feet indicated (when altimeter is set to 29.92 inches of mercury) and the temperature is 86 degrees Fahrenheit outside the aircraft (which corresponds to +30 degrees centigrade), my true airspeed would be as indicated on the white scale at the bottom.  You can see that there is about a 20 knot error in the indicated airspeed.  The Cessna 150 I am learning in does not have anything this fancy....  Where's my GPS????

All gauges received from Van's on this order are Falcon Gauges.  They came with certificates of calibration.  According to all of my calibration sheets, all of these calibrated to exacting tolerances.  SWEET!!!!  Be advised, after I received these gauges, I saw some bad press on other builders web site's for Van's gauges.  I look at it this way...  I spent around $500 for these three instruments.  When I went to Chief Aircraft, they wanted that much money just for the altimeter.  Don't get me wrong, these are important instruments, but I don't plan on an IFR cert and I figure if they give me problems, I can always replace them with higher quality instruments when my pocket book recovers.

Your "run of the mill" vertical speed indicator.

And finally for today's toys, your run of the mill altimeter calibrated in inches of Mercury (inHg).

You can read Tom's opinion on the air vents offered by Van's and Air Kit, LLC by going to his web page at:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/thomaswruble/Soapbox.htm
Needless to say, I was convinced and sent Air Kit, LLC a personal check for $288 (for 2 large air vents).  They had a price increase January 1, 2004 so I ordered them before the end of the year so I could save myself $20/pair.

The picture is deceptive of how big these vents are.  They are really nice and I think they will work well.  I am glad I came across them on Tom's website.

Air Kit, LLC can be reached at the following web address.  They didn't have on-line ordering when I ordered, but I just e-mailed them, Jeff (I think) promptly returned my e-mail with a confirmation, and then I sent him a personal check.  He promptly got the air vents in the mail to me.

http://www.bravoavtech.com/airkit/

I have more or less decided that I am going with the more conventional "steam gauges" for my instrument panel.  I have always been a high tech individual, but as I get older, I seem to be slowing the pace I adopt high tech.  Besides, it is always expensive being on the leading edge.  However, in my hypocrisy, I am keeping room on the panel for a Dynon EFIS, JUST IN CASE.

I had a wild hair up my a_s (My .Mac account won't let me post web pages with cuss words in them...  BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING).  I got bored last week while working on some of my college homework and placed an order to Chief Aircraft for a Mid-Continent turn coordinator.  Well, UPS left me a Valentines present in the garage today.  Man is this nice looking instrument.  I won't need this for a while, but I am trying to purchase and pay for some of these smaller things when I get the cash for them.  I foresee instruments and avionics as a big expense and one of the more difficult to pay for.  My strategy, one device at a time...

Not shown, but I ordered the amphenol plug to wire this into the panel (If I ever get that far...).

I also got 50 feet of 26 AWG, 5 conductor wire to wire the electric trim servo from Aircraft Spruce.  I think that should be more than enough to wire the trim servo up.  Ray Allen also sells this on his website too.