Work began on Tuesday (6/8) with an intensive session devoted to the aft tailcone bulkhead which holds the horizontal stabilizer bearings along with the stabilator trim bracket. It is structurally VERY important and therefore requires mainly solid, squeezed rivets. Taking it slowly and carefully, the result was not a single squeezed rivet needing to be drilled out. It was a very productive day but also a reminder of how much force is required to squeeze rivets, hence the sore muscles. Mark takes it as a point of pride that he measured each and every rivet after squeezing, and those that didn't measure up received a little extra umpf.
Work on Wednesday began with the assembling of the brackets/bearings for the horizontal stabilizer. This required more squeezed rivets. It was a matter of removing a cleco, squeezing a rivet, checking it, squeezing a bit more, checking it, and then repeating the process all the way around the bearing. After completing this it was ready to try a test fit of the bulkhead to the horizontal stabilizer. In order to do this the dining room table needed to be cleared and used as a workspace. We wondered what Grandma and Pap-pap Repko would have said if they knew a plane was being constructed on their table? Confident that they wouldn't bat an eye as it just adds one more chapter to the long history that this table has witnessed over it's life in the family, we went to work.
Through Mark's intensive research he knew that this test fitting step of the plans causes many people grief since there is no room for your hands, and washers need to be inserted in very small places. Wanting to do things his own way Mark stubbornly tried a novel approach using rare earth magnets on the end of telescopic wands to hold the washers in place while fitting the bulkhead into the vertical stabilizer. Well…..it didn’t work! Seeing as I was doing little to help the endeavor, I volunteered to go to Walgreens to get some usable Super Glue (ours had turned to a solid) to hold the washers in place (the tried and true method that others have used). For my willingness to drop what I was doing at a moments notice and run off and help Mark in the middle of his endeavor, I have now earned, and happily answer to, the name "Tonto". Fortunately, all was well with the first set of washers. In fact, there was not even a smidgen of lateral slop and the stabilator pivoted with a butter-like smoothness! It really is amazing how neatly and accurately all of the parts in this kit go together. Here's to hoping that things continue this way.
When that was done, Mark went back to the garage and prepped the bottom skins for the tailcone attaching stiffeners, deburring (of course), and breaking the edge. Supposedly, when the edge is properly broken, it should be barely visible. Since it's really difficult to see any change in the edge of the skin after it has been broken Mark thought he should hold off any riveting for another day to see he was doing this properly. He certainly didn’t want to overdo it since the skin can ripple and wave if you work it too dramatically with the edge breaking tool.
Thursday was devoted to riviting the bottom skins onto the tailcone. Mark started by placing the bottom skins on sawhorses and clecoing the tailcone hoops onto them. Next, he clecoed the curved lower side skins onto the bottom skins. Needless to say, with a 9 foot long tailcone this required a lot of clecos and his poor atrophied cleco hand was none too happy. Everything fit perfectly and the rest of the day involved de-clecoing, inserting rivets, and pulling rivets. By 4 in the afternoon, we had a piece that was looking very plane-like! Carl came over earlier in the afternoon to spend some time hanging out at the pool absorbing some UV with me and he seemed impressed with the sheer size of the piece Mark had created. After finishing the riveting of the bottom skins, Mark couldn't leave the garage and we spent some time clecoing the aft bulkhead onto the tailcone and the additional side skins while I was getting dinner ready.
Other accomplishements since our last posting:
We spent a long weekend in Colorado visiting my parents. It has become a tradition that we go up to visit after the AP exam in May and help Dad with his exhibit at the gun collectors show in Denver. It always makes for a good break from school and a great time to visit Mom and Dad. This year we even had a brief snow storm!
We've made our reservations at Marian College and are now squared away for our 6 night stay for Oshkosh! Talk about planes on the brain! Why do I have the feeling that we'll be spending lots of time at the Van's display?We just received our portable air conditioner to make the garage a more desirable place to work on the plane. Although it has wasn't super hot the last week, it was beyond humid. Tomorrow Mark will need to poke a hole in the wall the size of a dryer vent rather than knocking out a huge hole in the wall for a room unit. This one is supposed to cool up to 600 sq. ft. and since the garage is just under 500, we think it will work well.
We took a trip to Waco on Hansel and Gretel so Mark could take a 16 hour course to get his Light Sport Repairman Certificate which will allow him to do his own annuals on the plane. We stayed in Waco Friday and Saturday night. I audited the class on Friday night and Sunday, spending Saturday exploring downtown Waco and Baylor University. Everyone in the class was super friendly and helpful and we now know two more other RV12 builders that we can call upon if/when we have questions or need some help from others who have already solved the many little problems that creep up.
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