I have been having a difficult time getting out in the garage this week.  A hour here and a hour there is about all I have been able to muster.

Recently, there has been some discussion on the Yahoo RV-7 discussion group about whether or not to remove the vinyl from the parts prior to deburring and dimpling.  The picture below is a prime example of why you SHOULD NOT debur and dimple with the vinyl in place.  This is a picture on the inboard side of the leading edge skin after I match drilled the W-423 joint plate to the leading edge.  As you can see, there are a lot of aluminum filings trapped under the vinyl.

Not all holes will have this many filings, but it made a good example to illustrate why the vinyl should be removed prior to deburring and dimpling.

So far on this project, I have tried to leave as much vinyl on as possible, however, I remove the vinyl along all the rivet holes prior to deburring and dimpling.   Tonight I was able to talk Tami into coming out to the garage and remove the vinyl on the lower skins.  This work isn't all that exciting, but it sure helps things move along when she will come out and help me with these "low level" activities.  She was such a perfectionist on this job.  She even removed the vinyl around the curves for the inspection plate recesses.  Nice job honey...  Thanks for the help.

And finally for the night, I finished the z-brackets by riveting on the plate nuts.  I decided to sacrifice 3 plate nuts to my growing "scrap" collection.  I chased the threads of the 3 K1000-3 plate nuts with a 10-32 tap so that the AN3-4A bolts would thread with just your fingers.  This made installing/removing the plate nuts to drill the rivet hole locations on the z-brackets much easier and FASTER.  The brackets turned out okay.  I sure wish Van's would have designed them a little differently and give the builder a little more room on the rib / baffle / z-bracket flange.  It is going to be interesting to get a pop rivet puller in close enough to pull those rivets straight.

My next task will be to focus on fabrication of the first fuel tank...  WooHoo!!!