Fuselage Side Skins - Left

I dusted off my solo riveting skills today!  I riveted the left side armrest in (mostly, except the for and aft connections to the bulkheads) and finished riveting all of the portions of the left side skin that we'd skipped while the fuselage was upside down.  

It's a little bit difficult to figure out which rivets need to be left out for now and which can go in.  Most of the skin to longeron rivets (the top row) have to wait until the top skins go on, but there are some that I think need to be put in now.  I'll have to dig through the plans and try to figure it out.

Flipped the Canoe!

It was a long time coming, but I finally got the fuselage flipped over!  Rose helped me finish the last handful of really awkwardly placed rivets that we kept skipping over in every other riveting session.  She and I were able to role the fuselage 90 degrees at a time, pulling out saw horses, until it was right side up and setting on the fuselage stand I made.  For now I just propped the aft end up on a saw horse, but I will need to lower it soon and get everything level and twist free so I can drill and rivet the aft deck, which locks the geometry of the entire fuselage in place.  I almost threw the floors in just so I could sit in it and make engine noises, but I resisted the temptation....for now.

The jury is still out on whether or not it's going to be worthwhile to replace the seat back support with the "Almost a 14" modification.  What that does is replaces the support with a stainless steel version that is much smaller and sets further back, allowing the seat backs to be offset from each other.  From what I've been told, getting 4" of room for the passenger seat to move back relative to the pilot seat (or vice versa) doesn't seem like much, but because it means you're no longer shoulder to shoulder, it makes the cockpit feel much larger.  I would do it in a heartbeat except for the fact that it's made for the slider canopy setup.  It works with the tipup, but requires a pretty significant amount of work to redo the canopy latching mechanism.  Once I'm done riveting the side skins and put the seat pans in, I'll sit in it with Rose and see what I think.  We're both pretty small, so it may not be worth the effort.

While the fuselage was upside down, I had to remove a bolt on each side at one of the bulkheads in order to get a bucking bar on a rivet.  I put the bolts back in and torqued them back down. 

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how all of the riveting turned out.  The only place that I'm not thrilled about is on the lower, curved portion of the side skin where the center section connects to the tailcone.  The curved portions just don't fit all that great to begin with, and because of that it's not easy to make things fit up nice and tight when riveted together.  The left side ended up looking pretty good, but the right side is a little rougher.

It's hard to see in the picture, but from the outside you can see that near where the curve starts there is one portion with a gap between the skins.  It's minor, but of course it bugs me.  I'll leave it for now.  If it still bothers me in a year, then maybe I'll drill out the rivets and try again.  It's purely visual, and almost underneath the plane, so I'll probably get over it and just leave it.

The next step is to rivet the upper portions of the side skins to the various stiffeners and bulkheads, as well as some random areas like the baggage ribs to the aft baggage bulkhead.  I can now do all of that myself, so I'll be able to start moving a little faster again.

Bit by bit

A bit more riveting done this weekend.  We finished up most of the bottom skins as well as more of the side skins (the portions I wouldn't be able to reach by myself after flipping the fuselage over).  There are about 20 or so rivets left to do and then it'll be time to roll.

Misc Parts

 I haven't had a chance to do much work on the plane (even though it's getting really close to being ready to flip the fuselage over so I can move a lot faster), but why should that stop me from buying goodies for it?

The high pressure fuel pump and filter are needed to back up the mechanical fuel pump since I'm going with the fuel injected engine.  Van's sells a kit that includes the pump and filter, as well as the housing for it.  It'll be installed on the floor in front of the seats.

This is a picture from another builder's site.  The housing has a place for the fuel selector valve and covers the pump.

The standard Van's fuel selector valve leaves a lot to be desired.  It looks like a valve I would build with parts from Home Depot.  I'm sure it works and is a cheap solution, but it seems like a shame to spend a lot of time making a nice interior and then have an eyesore for a fuel selector.  I decided to spend a few extra bucks and get the Andair valve, which is a beautiful piece of machining.

Van's used to include super cheap plastic air vents with the kit, but virtually everyone threw them away because they leaked so bad.  So now the kits don't include vents as standard. I ordered aluminum vents instead of going with the cheaper plastic version.  I can't remember the last car I had that didn't end up having a broken plastic air vent.  I think aluminum will last a lot longer, and they look much nicer.

The electric flaps don't include a way to set any position detents.  I suppose I could go the counting method and always count to 3 for X degrees of flaps, another 3 seconds for Y degrees, but I'd much rather have a method that is just automatic.  The Show Planes system has a collar that goes over the flap actuator and can provide a reference point for varying degrees of flaps.  The control box hooks up to the switch on the panel so that the flaps can be set with just a flip of the switch, and you can bring the flaps back to full up without having to hold the switch.

I'm going to install the ADAHRS box for the EFIS behind the baggage compartment in the tailcone.  In order to be calibrated, it has to be level and not necessarily with the angle of the airplane structure.  The tailcone doesn't sit level, but Van's has already done the geometry and has a cheap, slightly angled bracket that can be riveted to the J-stringers of the top tailcone skin and it automatically sets the bracket at level.

Lastly, as much as I hate the stuff, I ordered more ProSeal (well, not actually that brand, but it's kind of like Kleenex vs tissue).  I am all out of the batch I used to seal the fuel tanks.  I definitely didn't need this much, but it's the smallest container.  I will just need some for varying things as I build.  It's not technically a glue, but that's what everyone uses it for.  I'll use it to glue in the naca vents for the air vents, sealing leak paths in the tip up canopy at the hinge, attaching wire zip tie brackets, etc.