RV-10 Build Log

2 hours

Got it all riveted together. I think I’ll build a wing cart and get this on the left wing before I go onto the right side.

1.5 hours

Got a good number of rivets bucked! Still many to go

1 hour

I wish I could have kept working longer but I’m about to fly a test for my instructional category and I have some prep to do at work before flying the pre-test this evening. Looking forward to having that behind me again for a year.

Per the plans, I reassembled the leading edge assembly and riveted the first 2 rivets on both top and bottom of all the ribs to skin, plus the splice strip.

The tungsten bar and mushroom set works a treat with the pressure turned down around 30psi or so. Very easy to control both sides and I’m getting super flat rivets and nice shop heads. Very pleased with this. I wanted to back rivet the top, as I may have posted earlier, but the plans specifically want you to pin the first 2 and then work in sequence towards the leading edge. Took that advice to heart, and so far pulling the skin down towards the leading edge in the jig is giving a nice result.

I do not regret back riveting the J-stiffener though. That should be SOP for other builders in this section.

2 hours

Got the nut plates riveted onto the splice strips, and then scuffed, cleaned, and primed the left leading edge ribs.

2 hours

Rescuffed the skin, cleaned it with isopropyl, and got it primed. Then I did the same to the stiffener.

Lastly, I riveted the stiffener to the skin. I back riveted it for a nice flush finish on top. I think I’ll do the same for the ribs, then do the bottom old school with the tungsten bar.

Lastly I got the splice strip primed.

3 hours

Got the DRDT2 out and dimpled the stiffener. Moved a bunch of stuff around and got it setup on the benches, then went to town on the skin

Of course, all of this was after I spent a couple hours deburring them

4 hours

A note… a person less engaged in chatter, play, and involving a 3 year old could probably do all of these tasks in much less time! 3 year old for scale in one of the pics below…

Well, the flu ripped through our house this weekend. Not fun. I took a sick day from work to recover from yesterday… towards the end of the day I stopped feeling sorry for myself and got some work done on the RV-10.

I realized that while Billy and I drilled the stiffener, we used an actual 3/32” drill so I went back and reamed the stiffener holes. Almost missed the aft most holes in the wing ribs, so drilled and reamed those as well.

Then it was time for stuff to come apart. I melted the plastic strips away from the holes as I removed clecos, then dimpled the ribs and the splice strip (where the fuel tank screws to the rest of the hollow leading edge).

I can’t remember if this was the way I have been doing it, but I used the tank dimple dies for the ribs, and only used the substructure dies on the inboard rib which gets the splice strip (ie 3 stacked layers of dimples… the strip, the rib, the skin). I did a little test on some scrap (which I’m sure I’ve done before) and there isn’t a big difference in the way a skin dimple nests into a tank die dimple vs a substructure dimple.

I still need to dimple the stiffener and the skin, then I can prime and start assembling this leading edge for good. I’m going to have to build that wing cradle/cart pretty soon!

1 hour

Spent an hour deburring and countersinking the splice strip for one of the leading edges.

3.5 hours

The project continues…

Some of you are already aware, but Van’s Aircraft is currently in the throes of Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Thankfully, I am not involved in that, but it does raise some concerns about getting a fuselage kit and getting this project finished.

For now, I will do what I can do, and I will order the fuselage kit when I nearly run out of things to do. The build goes on.

Today I got the left leading edge skin in the cradle, cleco’d in the ribs I already prepped (modified as required and deburred), and cut the J-stiffeners for both sides. These leading edge assemblies are on the outer portion of each wing, and have a splice strip (from my last blog post) that will allow the inboard fuel tanks to screw to these leading edge assemblies (in addition to being screwed to the spar, of course).

Lastly, Billy and I got the J-stiffener drill and cleco’d on the left leading edge.

1 hour

I’m working in Winnipeg at the moment, so my building time is quite limited. More on that later… maybe?

I spent an hour using the dremel cut off wheel to removed the fuel tank skin splices from the fuel tank skins. Trimmed with the red snips, and then filed the skin edges flush to remove the rest of the tab remnants.

I used the same snips on the splices themselves, but used the belt sander to smooth out the punches edges and ensure the tabs were no more.

Was this truly an hour worth of work? Maybe not. But when a 2.5 year wants to help you change the cut off wheel on the dremel, it slows things down a little LOL. Worth it!