Tonight's tasks were the perfect example of why, while an RV is relatively "easy" to build, it still takes far more time that it seems like it should. The instructions are already starting to get more and more sparse, so it feels like I'm spending as much time trying to find callouts on the plans as I am building. It probably took me a good 10 minutes of staring at the plans before I finally found the note indicating the rivet sizes to use for the nut plates that attach to the spar and are used to capture the rod end bearings. All of the information is there, but it just takes a while to piece it together sometimes.
Once the spar was all done, the counterbalance rib was riveted on. That's when I hit another 2 minute task that took 30 minutes. The lead counterbalance weight gets inserted into the counterbalance rib and attached using two nut plates. This requires prepping the aluminum stock, countersinking it for rivet heads that need to sit flush against the counterweight, priming it, riveting the nut plates on, then assembling everything. The "assembling everything" part took another 15 minutes though, because the lead was just a bit to wide at the front, so I had to file off a little bit here and there so it would clear the rivets in the skin and the screws would hit the nut plates. So all in all, an extremely simple task, but just took forever.
I clecoed the skins to the spar and called it a night. I get pretty lost in building, so it'd be very easy for me to be trucking along and not realize it's midnight. I have forced myself to set an alarm to ensure that I end at a reasonable hour and don't get too carried away. I need to at least be somewhat functional in the mornings for work so I can pay for this contraption.
