Monthly Construction Log - November 2008

Date  
1 Riveted tailcone sides. Touched up primer on skins and primed remaining pieces. Assembled tailcone belly.

   
2 Riveted tailcone belly. Reassembled tailcone to top skin installation. Still need to complete riveting of bulkhead #5 area and belly/side skin joint. [Late note: do not put in the most forward rivets on the bellcrank assembly to the belly skin - the center fuselage belly skin has two protrusions that will need to be riveted to those points.]

   

 

3 Working on finishing riveting in bulkhead#5 area. Received shipment of backordered parts from Rans.
4 Completed riveting of bulkhead #5 except for close-out and aft longeron. Rivted belly/side skin joint except for last few rivets in bulkhead #1 area. [A couple of the AAPQ-48 rivets on right stabilator attach angle will need to be removed to install the trim servo - they should not have been installed yet.]

   
5 Riveted footstep attachment point area of bulkhead #1. Fitted top skins to tailcone.

   

   

6 No work.
7 Transfer drilled top skins #30.
8 Polished and top skins and upper bulkhead #1-3 in preparation for priming.
9 Primed top skins and upper bulkheads. Riveted tailcone close-out and bulkhead #4. Installed rudder cable pulleys on bulkhead #4. Rivted siffeners to top skins. Transfer drilled #40 the seatbelt gussets to the top skins and set aside for now.
10 Finished riveting of bulkhead #1-3.
11 No work.
12 Started center fuselage rib assembly.  
13 Continued center fuselage assembly. Removed bulkhead #1 from tailcone and clecoed to center section. Test fit side skin to verify placement. Still need to fabricate the rear spar bulkhead support angles - will get to that , the modification to the cabin sidewall rib, and skin bending tomorrow.

   

14 Put a 5-2 CherryMax rivet in each of the 4 holes that were erroneously drilled out for the brake cylinder bracket's #8 machine screws.

   

15 Modified cabin sidewall ribs with slot and fluting. Fabricated left and right rear spear bulkhead support angles, installed, and transfer drilled.

   

   

16 Bent cabin side skins and installed. Installed KPFU0138 onto baggage rib (thanks, Glenn!). Also found that I had the two inboard baggage ribs reversed, which was corrected. Formed forward longerons. Temporarily joined forward and center fuselage to test longeron fit. Fitted longeron to fuselage.

   

17 Transfer drilled left forward longeron except one hole on gusset (picture to right is looking at the underside of the right longeron)- will get the last hole when disassembling. Started transfer drilling on right forward longeron.

    

18 Finished transfer drilling right forward longeron. Fabricated shims and installed gussets. Detached forward fuselage section and flipped center fuselage over. Installed belly skin and gear attach gussets.

   

19 Transfer drilled belly skin and gussets to gear attach block. Drilled the aft two holes from inside, then fastened the gear attach clamp upside down using those two holes. Then used the gear attach clamp as a guide to drill the forward hole.

 

20 Transfer drilling belly skin.
21 No work.
22 No work.
23 Finished belly skin transfer drilling. Installed seatbelt angles and transfer drilled.
24 Installed gusset and angle at gear attach blocks. Installed gear attach blocks, transfer drilled and reamed. Long-reach heavy-duty clecos and wing-nut clecos make things much easier. Toughest challenge of the night is avoiding being gored by a longeron. 

   

   

25 Started test fit-up of seat skins and baggage skins.
26 Continued fit-up of seat/baggage area. The spar carry through cover is mis-drilled in a number of nutplate locations (middle hole for 3/32" rivet), but the rest of the pieces are in alignment. Will need to elongate holes in spar cover to fit rivet.

   

27 No work.
28 Removed belly skin and fitted remainder of seat deck pieces.

 

29 Made #8 nutplate template for two nut plates that were not drilled for the center access plate. Transfer drilled seat deck, baggage deck, and flap handle weldment. Disassembled center fuselage (amazing how small it is when the pieces are in a pile.) Cut the bushings for the stabilator bellcrank assembly, and drilled bellcrank plates to size. Transfer drilled aft stabilator push-pull tube end fittings.

   

   

30 No work.