Kit order :5/6/2011 Kit arrived : 7/14/2011 Kit finished: 12/17/2011 (All but bottom skin and wingtips) Time on wing kit so far: 365 Changes from plans:
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Wings
Bottom Skins
Finished all the wing accessories and wiring  Tapped the wing tiedown bolts. You are supposed to do this before riveting the leading edge. It was not a problem doing it now. (Did not have a tap set before)  Installed autopilot servo. I made the mistake of safety wiring it. Don't, you will need it out when riveting the bottom skin.  Mounted heated pitot on mast. Required some fileing to get it in.  Elected to put it just outboard of inspection plate.  Cut skin (with drill, then dremil sanding drum), then added rivet holes.  Mounted circuit board for the pitot heat control. Finished all other wiring in the wing, added several nutplates for adel clamps.  Started riveting. Using string to tie the skin to the flap attach really helped.  Last 1/3 of the wing.  Daniel came by 2 days to help me on the bottom skins. He helped for about 10 of the 20 or so hours it took. Most of it could be done by 1 person, but it really helped to have the extra hands and arm reach of 2 people. Especially the second 1/2 of the first skin, and the first 1/2 of the second skin.  Inspectiing rivets.  Wings are Done. Now back to wiring. |
Wing Tips and lights
 Trimmed the wingtips.  Rough cut the plexiglass with roto-zip. Then sanded on belt sander to get to final fit.  Mounted lights.... then realized I had mounted them backwards, witht the landing light pointed out and the position light pointed forward.... ARG.  Patched fiberglass and ready to start over.  Now facing the correct way. Also Mirrored plexi added to the surfaces. (Still has plastic on the mirror currently) Position light offset upwards to keep it out of the landing light. I decided to do something different with the taxi lights. Instead of using ductworks lights. I decided to put them in the wingtip.  Started by cutting a hole.  Then covered the cutout piece with 5 layers of masking tape to build up and edge, then packing tape, and taped it back into the opening. Then layed up 3 ply of fiberglass overlaping the opening and the wingtip about 1" in each direction.  After drying, then popped the cut piece back out, and trimmed the edge of the fiberglass to be 3/8" on sides and 1/2" on top and bottom. This leaves a edge that the plexiglass cover will fit into. Then used some cutoff from the doors as a mounting plate for the light itself. I mounted it perpendicular to the cord of the wing (string), and perpendicular to the span of the wing.  Then floxed the piece in followed by 2 ply of e-glass.  Added nutplates for mounting.  Final install. Still need to buy some plexi and bend it to match the opening.  Created mount for landing light. It is mounted with one screw in the side. This will allow me to pivot it to get it pointed in the correct direction.(up/down) Installed all the nutplates for mounting, then covered wing with packing tape and micro'ed the edge of the wingtip.  Installed Archer comm antena in right wingtip. The base of the antenna gets riveted with the nutplates. The top of the antena I wrapped some fiberglass around to bond it to the top of the tip. |
Flaps & Ailerons
Not much to say about them. Ailerons went together very quickly and to plans. Only big thing is make sure to drill the steel counterwieghts VERY SLOWLY. I went through a bit a hole for the first 3-4 holes, taking 5-10 min per hole. I though I was never going to get done. Then I read on VAF that you have to drill slower. Then it would only take 30sec to 1 min to drill each hole and I did not burn up the bits. Other than that they are very similar to rudder. Tip: When attaching ailerons there are many washers bushings etc that you have to get on bolts in a very tight space. I found by far the best way to do it is to string them on dental floss, then tighten the dental floss and slide the bolt in. Then slide the dental floss out and put the nut on the end.  Flap Assembly  Flap match drill. Did not take many pictures during this as I was bouncing between fueltanks, flaps, ailerons, and testing tanks, and vacations. |
Fuel Tanks
Part Started: 9/15/2011 Part finished: 12/11/2011 Time : 90.5 Changes from plans:
Great writeup on how to proseal your tanks Basics of how I did most of my tanks, coat the ribs with proseal and cleco them in (every hole). Then let the proseal setup a day (or more) before riveting. Then put a dab of proseal in each rivet hole with a Q-tip, followed by a rivet. I would dab enough holes that I could rivet in about 1 hr, then insert rivets in those holes, change to clean gloves, and then rivet them. Only the hand with the bucking bar would get proseal, along with the bucking bar and the flush rivet set. Then wipe down the skin, bucking bar and flush rivet set with acitone and start the next batch of rivets. Overall it was not as bad as I expected, but does take a lot longer. No leaks in the pressure test.  Fuel tank initial fit and match drilling  Prosealing the stiffeners and backriveting.  Prosealed over and riveted plates over tooling holes and nutplates.  Riveting done except back baffle. Vent line is in, and proseal slathered on external joints.  Before putting the back baffle on I filled the tanks with water (with water balloons over the fuel and vent lines) to check for any leaks. One tank was fine, the other had a steady drip out of one of the tooling hole covers. Drained the tank (with a wet/dry vac) and then coated the inside of the tooling hole cover with proseal again.  Added proseal to all surfaces about to put the back baffle in place. I used a ziplock back with a corner cut out to apply the proseal lines. Everywhere else I had just used a popsicle stick.  Tank done! After 2 weeks, put a balloon over the fuel outlet and ziptied on. Filled the tank from the vent line, then when the balloon was full put a small water balloon on the vent line. Covered the tanks with soapy water. Only bubbles came from the drain, and from around the fuel outlet fitting. I removed these and put a little Fuel Lube on them then snugged them back down. With the fuel lube they tightened much further into the fittings, and no leaks of air. The balloons were still inflated 2 weeks later when I had to pop them to get them out of the way to put the aileron pushrods in. |
Leading Edge
Part Started: 9/7/2011 Part finished: 9/24/2011 Time : 34.5 Changes from plans:
Leading edges went together quickly and without problems. The only hard part was getting the ribs in and the cleoco's in the very nose. Left leading edge I started at the rear and worked my way to the front. I had to fight to get every cleoco in, and it took 2+ hours to get it assembled for match drilling. The right one I got the formost 3 clecos in on the topskin in the very nose, and then turned it over and got the first 2 cleco's in the bottom skin. This was much easier (I did this on the workbench, and not in the jig. I then put it in the jig and the other clecos went in quickly and easily. Less than 1 hr to get it assmebled. Other change I did was to backrivet the J-stiffener in before inserting the ribs. It was easy still to put the ribs in with the stiffener already riveted in, and saved a little time with the riveting.  Leading edge complete.  Leading edge being riveted on. The bottom skin side was very easy to rivet as they could be squeezed (with no bottom skin in the way. With the topskin on, 80% of them needed 2 people. Since I am working solo, this made it very difficult to get them bucked. I was planning on backriveting them, but they were too far in for my offset 12" backrivet to get. needed about 1/2 inch more offset. Brian (http://www.brianmichael.org/) stopped by one day and helped me out. If you are working solo, you MIGHT try attaching the Nose on before riveting the outer top skin. If backriveting the topskin, it will make it more cumbersome to flip the wing, but possible to get the leading edge and topskin without help. (Just an idea as I did not do it this way and don't know if it really will help or not. Nothing will prevent the topskin from going on after the leading edge. |
Right Wing Center Section Complete
Sections 14,15,16 Part Started: 7/23/2011 Part finished: 9/7/2011 (Right and Left) Time : 101 hrs Section 14 Wing Ribs 36 hrs Section 15 Rear Spar 15 hrs Section 16 Top Skin 50 hrs Changes from plans: Drilled 3/4 inch holes in spars for conduate. Prepared bottom skins at same time including match drilling and dimpling the ribs. I have now completed both wing center sections and working on the leading edge. Right wing went together just like the left wing. Tip: Don't bolt on the Aileron Bellcrank brackets until you have backrivited the topskin on (if you are going to backrivet it). It sticks out and you have to remove them to do the backriveting. They also get in the way of riveting the leading edge. Leave them off until you do aileron activation. Tip: If working alone (no bucking help) rivet the leading edge on before putting the topskin on. That way you can squeese both sides of the leading edge on, and can still backrivet the topskin on (although will probably be a little harder to manuver the wing while backriveting. The top side of the leading edge is the only place I have had to have bucking help. (Thanks Brian Michael)   One set of rivets ready to be placed on the backrivet plate.  |
Left Wing main section Complete
I finished match drilling all of the main section of the left wing. Including topskin and bottom skin before riveting the ribs on. I then dissasembled all of it and spent a long time deburring and dimpling everything. This allowed me to dimple the ribs with the DRDT-2. Also allowed 1 big priming day instead of priming each set of pieces separately. This method seems to have worked very well, and I will do it the same for the right wing.   Dimpling the skins. Again, I went ahead and match drilled and dimpled the bottom skin along with the top skin. I did not rivet the bottom skin on yet as need it off to run wires etc.  Structure primed and riveting the rear spar on.  Backriveting the top skin on. I did all the rivets on the top skin by myself by using a backriveting plate and a long offset backrivet attachment. Only did not get 4-5 rivets set perfectly that had to be drilled out and re-set.  Here I am clamping the main spar to the backrivet plate to make sure there is no gap between the skin and the plate to get the rivets to set perfect.  Another shot of the backrivet plate being positioned to set the rivets. The trailing 1/2 of the wing could be done all at the same time, the leading portion of the ribs I had to adjust the tilt of the wing every 3 rivets to make sure they were sitting flat on the backrivet plate. Would have been quicker with a helper, probably took 1 hr extra to do by myself, but since I don't have a regular helper....  Top skin complete  |
Wing Progress
Don't have any completed steps, just lots of progress on many different steps. I have decided to build further through the plans before riveting. I am mainly working on the Left wing (don't really have space to have both wings layed out at one time), but any parts manufacturing that needs to be done I am doing for both wings, so the right wing should come together quickly after I am done with the left. I am also continuing the build-up and match drilling of the entire main section of the wing (Ribs, Rear Spar, Top Skin, and possibly bottom skin) before dissasembling, deburring, dimpling, and priming. It seems to me that getting the skins match drilled now will allow me to dimple the ribs by themselves, this is much easier than doing it after they are attached together. Will follow-up after wing body completed to let you know if there were any gotcha's doing it this way. Some photos of the progress:   A million holes that have to be countersunk  Countersunks all done and nutplates installed.  Closeup of the countersinks Ribs attached to the spar! All of the sudden it looks big! (and something like a wing.  Rear spar attached. This is 31 hrs into wing kit. The 5 ribs that had modifications done are edge-deburred, the others still need deburred. All parts that needed modification have been done for right wing as well. |
Wings arrived
Waiting on Wings, Time to remodel house
Well, my wing kit is scheduled to arrive next week, so since the tail is complete it is time to move it to storage in the garage so that I have more room in the basement shop. Unfortunately it will not fit through the door to the basement, so it is time to do some remodelling. This was in the "Plans", I have a set of windows that look out on our patio. These will be converted to double doors wide enough to get the fusalage of the plane (including wing spar stubs) out of. After removing the windows I found that the header was 3" too short to fit a full 6 foot door in. Looked at custom ordering a door, but the price was $300 more, and had a 3-5 week lead time.... Time to install a new header :) Still have to finish the drywall up and paint inside (next time I am waiting for a kit as the wings have arrived). Door installation took about 13 hr of work. Not including this in my build time. |
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