Hello, World!

Getting Started:
After years of dreaming, I've finally started my adventure in building an RV-14a.  I'm still working full time, so the project will largely be a weekend and vacations deal.  All told, I expect this project to take a significant amount of time to complete.

Initial Setup:
I've started by expanding my tool kit.  This includes some of the nice-to-haves like DRDT-2, multiple EAA 1000 tables, lots of extra cleco's, and a pneumatic squeezer.


Unboxing:
The Saia delivery wasn't too difficult.  Note to self, buy some better snips than the ones from Harbor Freight.


After an initial inventory, all the sub-kits appear to be in order.  Unfortunately, the sun was setting and temperatures were dropping, so the full inventory will have to wait.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quality Control at Boeing

Image
Prime-a-palooza After what I thought was enough deburring (more on that in a bit), I started priming the shiny bits.

The rudder has significantly more components than the vertical stabilizer, which resulted in a number of rounds of priming.

Finally, I was able to start dimpling the skins, which was oddly satisfying
Anticipating some flush riveting in the near future, I finally sanded the Avery swivel set so the AN426 heads don't sit proud to the skins.
First Big(ish?) Mistake So Flight Chops has a new video out about his build!  He seems like a good guy, but honestly I feel like his videos make building seem more daunting than other channels set up specifically for building.  This is primarily because Steve seems so overwhelmed by everything, and he appears to be leaning pretty heavily on experts.  This is compared to Jason Ellis' channel, where he shares not only the build process, but the process of learning, making mistakes, and resolving issues.  Seeing Jason make mistake…
Read more

"Like Working in a Convection Oven"

Image
A Visit from the EAA Chapter: Last week saw a visit from the local EAA chapter, after the morning's meeting.  I did a little show-and-tell, explaining to some of the members what was going on, what various contraptions were used for what.  To my benefit, some of the other builders in the club took a look over my work thus far.
They pointed out that I should prime the final-drilled hinge bracket attach holes as the brackets themselves are steel, and will corrode if not treated.  Not a big deal, I'm going to be priming the skeleton of the rudder next week, so I'll drill out the brackets and touch them up then.

Starting the Rudder With the newfound confidence of (mostly) finishing my first actual airplane part, I finally got along to starting the rudder.  Having read ahead in the instructions, it looks like the riveted trailing edge will present the biggest hurdle.  Lucky me, I've practiced once on the preview kit, and did alright.  This one has a pre-drilled wedge, whic…
Read more

Why is the little wheel on the wrong end?

Image
Refinishing the V-Stab Spar So, I apparently can't get enough of the vertical stabilizer.  After fretting about the stiffener, I finally drilled out all 62 rivets common to the spar.  On the bright side, I've gotten really good at drilling out rivets.  It helps that the rivets were all 4/32nds diameter.

Having drilled out the stiffener, I went to town on it, smoothing out the edges with the bench grinder and die grinder with attached scotchbrite wheel.  Of course, sanding these edges took off some of the primer, and this had to be touched up.  I picked up an airbrush, which was actually pretty hard to use.  At some point, I'll probably have to use it again, but I definitely prefer the HVLP gun.


EAA Tech Councilor Visit After getting the spar re-assembled, I contacted an EAA Tech Councilor, Mr. William Bennett to stop by for an initial inspection.  After inspecting the V-stab and the work done thus far on the rudder, he signed me off with the initial inspection form!  Than…
Read more