Luis & Fab's RV-7A Construction Log

All the stiffeners for the right elevator are done. The elevator skin has also been deburred. The next step is to match drill the stiffeners to the skin. Since the skin is pre-bent, drilling the last few holes closest to the trailing edge is very difficult. I found it much easier to bend the skin back if the stiffeners are clecoed on. So, I clecoed the stiffeners on one side of the skin, and match drilled the ones on the other side. I then switched sides.

The only other things to note is that the last hole on three of the stiffeners on each side are drilled in assembly with the skin. No big deal, just have to be drilled from the outside.

While I wait for my new rudder skin to arrive, I’ve been fabricating the elevator stiffeners. These are very similar to the rudder stiffeners. Slow, repetitive work. No pictures this time 🙂

I started back-riveting the rudder skins. One of the skins came out perfect, but on the other one I really messed up the very last rivet I put in. I hit the rivet without it being on the steel back riveting plate, and bent the stiffener and the skin. This is mostly a cosmetic issue, but I know it’s going to annoy the hell out of me every time I pre-flight the plane. So, I’m ordering a new skin and stiffeners to do it again…

While riveting the skin, I screwed up the very last rivet in the middle rib. I had to wait several days while I ordered an ‘oops rivet’ from Van’s Aircraft. Once it got here things went pretty fast. I fixed the bad rivet and went on to rivet the outer ribs and rear spar. I finally finished today and took the blue plastic off.

Saturday was spent priming the rudder parts. While those dry, I’ve started to rivet the vertical stabilizer.

Not much work today. I just dimpled both rudder skins in the C-frame. I will probably prime the skins and reinforcement angles this Saturday. The Vertical Stabilizer parts are probably as dry as they’re going to get, so I’ll put that together this weekend as well.