I took some old control surface jigs, clamped them to the bench, and then clamped a 2X4 with a 1X2 glued to it in an offset fashion as shown so that the bottom rail of the canopy frame could be clamped to the 1X2 and the 2X4 clamped to the jig.  Other than that, I had to grind away part of a pair of C-clamps (shown to the right of the level).  If you try this, you'll see what and why you need to modify a pair of clamps.  Now, with everything adjustable, clamp one side and measure the angle of the bottom rail of the canopy frame, then clamp the other side at the same angle.  The frame has no twist and is easily accessible to fit and drill the stiffeners.     

Relief Holes: On 1/14/04 of my "Tips" page, I documented a missing relief hole in the landing gear socket.  On the final installation I found another - the lowest side-skin rivet next to the spar carry-through bulkhead interferes with the flange on the socket through which the five (5) AN3-6A bolts attach the socket to the lower longeron.  If your fuse is up-side-down and you look into the elliptical hole where the socket sticks out the bottom, the AN4 rivet visible right there is the culprit. 

Unfilled Holes:  My forward spar carry-through bulkhead had 4 holes that should have been riveted by Van's subcontractor.  When I called Van's to ask about it I was told that the person who riveted it together was "probably confused" about what was to be riveted and what was to be left open.  (Makes me feel confident.  if the rivets weren't so well set otherwise, I'd be concerned, even annoyed.  Don't they know what check templates are.  And it's not just me.  My friend Howard with a QB has the same missing holes.)  Anyway, I was told to just bolt them with AN3 bolts.  Since the packing list called identified AN4-12A bolts for the landing gear receiver to spar carry-throu and the blue prints call for AN4-13A, which is what is needed for the thickness of spar, Van's quickly sent 12 of the AN4-13A bolts and replacement AN3 bolts used to fill their missing rivet holes.

Hard-to-get-at holes:   The leg of the landing gear receiver that bolts to the lower longeron with two AN509-10R12 structural screws (actually the spec'd screws are too short, I had to order the next size longer from Spruce.) has two predrilled holes in the steel flange.  The aft of these can be drilled through the longeron and skins with no problem, but the forward hole is "under" the vertical bulkhead rib.  I could have drilled a small hole in that rib so that I could back drill that hole, but I felt a creative alternative had to exist.  This is not rocket science, but it was fun.  Get a couple of left over rudder or elevator skin stiffener angles about 8" long.  Take one and position it inside over the holes in the flange in such a way that you can hold your digital level against the angle and mark the hole positions on the angle wit a felt pen.  Now on the workbench clamp the two angles together and flat and drill #30 holes exactly 1" apart -the distance of the two predrilled pilot holes in the landing gear receiver.  Take the one you marked back to the plane, cleco the angle through the holes you can drill and pin the other hole to the pilot hole you can't easily get at.  Measure and note the angle.  Now from the outside, as shown in the picture to the left, take the other skin stiffener you drill -  the mirror image of the one used on the inside - cleco it in place, recreate the angle (3.3 degrees in my case).  The open hole in the angle will be in line with the pilot hole in the LG flange and can be drilled at 90 degrees from the outside, now that you know where it is at. 

The "tip" is to make sure that your holes are aligned and stay aligned during the reaming process by threading in an old AN5 bolt part way through the back side of the hole and reaming part way through before removing the bolt.  My friend Howard pointed out that I missed the instructions on the blue print to ream open the 9/32" predrilled hole in the socket by back reaming through the predrilled .311 hole in the socket and the predrilled .311 hole in the gear leg.   

Anyway, taking the unit out of the wing, I noticed that the edge of the Tru Trak supplied cadmium-plated bracket that holds both the servo and the bellcrank was rusting a wee bit.  (The plating wasn't that good on the edge.  So, I filed the machine marks out of it (like I should have done in the first place), cleaned it and brushed on some of Van's powder coat touch-up paint. 

Also, on the subject of the tri-gear main mounts.  The third picture shows one of the three outboard nutplates on the forward part of the spar carry-though.  I installed countersunk K1100-08 nutplates because I don't want my seat cushions abrading on the tops of round head AN515-8R8 screws.  Shown held in place with a cleco clamp is the K1000-08 nutplates called for in the plans.  As you can see the height is not that different.  But thre real point of this note is either way, the outboard three nutplates get in the way of installing the main gear mount.  I drilled mine out and will reinstall after the mount is boled in place. 

The 2nd picture shows (red circle) an area of the roll bar that will need to be shaved a little so that the seat back forward support will fit under it before I paint things.  Also, as you can see there is about 1/8" clearance between the seat and the AN3 bolts at the base of the roll bar.  Another builder ended up with his seats interfering with the cabin frame by about 1/2".  I was concerned about this, which is why I'm checking things before I prime and rivet.  When I was building my seat backs I discovered that the bottom edge of the seat skin was not necessarily 90 degrees to the sides.  So when I drilled the bottom hinge and angle, I use a carpenter's square to make sure I had the hinge 90 degrees to the sides.  I thought this might be easily overlooked and be the cause of Dan's alignment problem.  But that's a lot - 3/4", since I'm 1/4" inside and he's 1/2" outside.  The only thing that seems possible now is that he set his seat bottom hinges off somehow.

The plans call for the horizontal flange of the 1" x 1" x 0.125" angle to which the roll bar support (F-632A) gets riveted to the baggage bulkhead be between the skin and the roll bar support.  I was curious about clearance between the F-632A and the skin for the canopy plexi, so I called Van's and explained that I had see another builder put the angle underneath the F-632A.  Bruce assured me that there would be room for the plexi and confirmed that the angle should go between the skin and the 632.  That way the 632 gets riveted to the web, flange, and top skin versus just the web of the bulkhead.    The 3rd picture (red circle) also show an area where the 632 support will need to be cut away fom the bulkhead to allow the top baggage wall to fit against the bulkhead. 

While you watch for the CENTERLINES through the holes. 8/9/03.  Here's what the construction manual says for INSTALLING THE FLOOR STIFFENERS:

The next step instructs you to also drill the stiffeners to the F-783B-l&R Cover Support Ribs and F-601J angles on the firewall.  This step invalidates the previous two.  If you use the centerline technique, there is very good chance that the stiffeners will not lie flush to the F-783B-l&R Cover Support Ribs and F-601J angles.  Here's how I would rewrite these steps:

I used the same technique for the outboard floor stiffeners.  I clecoed the F982A-L&R (access cover shown in 3rd pictures - taildraggers have a different cover) in place.  Its position is set by the prepunched kit, as is the F-772 forward-bottom skin.  The only things that's not set-in-stone (prepunched) are the floor stiffeners, so you might just as well center their vertical flanges in the slots of the F982A-L&R, make a couple of marks on the horizontal flanges through the prepunched F-772 skin holes, verify rivet-to-edge distances, and rivet the stiffeners centered in the slots of the F982A-L&R.

Picture #2: How to polish out the machining marks from the relief "hole".  You can get small drum sanders for your Dremel tool, but mine didn't come with anything finer than about 100 grit.

Picture #3: I've used this technique to polish the insides of the aileron bushings.  Take a 1/4" dowel and cut a ~3/4" slot in it with a copping saw.  The coping saws thin blade will result in a thin cut, which will hold your abrasive paper better.  Chuck it in your Sioux drill and take a 3/4" x 2" strip of 400 grit wet-dry paper and wrap it through the slot and around the dowel as shown and polish all the machining marks out of that relief hole. 

Maybe I missed something along the way, but even if you don't prime any of your ribs and like parts because they're "alclad", no matter how scuffed up you made them during the building process, my understanding from my tech counselor is that at least one of all your fayed edges should be primed.  A fayed edge is any place where two pieces of aluminum (alclad or not) are joined together "tightly", as in riveted.  Nick doesn't prime his alclad ribs (or interior skins for that matter), but I'd suppose he's got enough experience that he can prep the ribs without removing enough alclad coating to create a potential problem.  But Nick still primes one of the surface of the rib flange that gets riveted to the skin.

That said, early in the fuselage construction you're to countersink for the rivets and install a number of K1000-08 nut plates in the top flanges of the F-704 bulkhead.  This is the spar carry through bulkhead (and also part of your seat bottom).  Fine.  Hey I'm just following directions.  Much later, when your prepping the seat bottom ribs, you're instructed to prep and install more K1000-08 nut plates.  It was about then that I really came to understand the difference between a K1000-08 nut plate and a K1100-08 nut plate.  K1000s are for A515 screws (shown on left), while K1100 nut plates are for AN509 screws (shown right).  Well, I'm was pretty sure that it didn't make sense to me to put 20 or so AN515 screw heads under you seat cushion.  Not that you'd feel them, but that they'd very likely wear the bottom of your cushion over time.  Likewise with the baggage compartment - why put screw heads sticking up that could mar leather baggage and the like when you could as easily put flush AN509 screws?  The answer I got from Van's was "You can use the K1000 [K1100 sic.] nutplates if you wish, however, our planes are built per plans as is mine and I have had no adverse wear on my seat cushions or in the baggage area.".

So, the choice is up to you.  I'm going with flush screws in places that make sense to me.  I only bring it up, so if you decide likewise, you might avoid drilling out all the K1000 nut plates from F-704 bulk head like I did last night. 

My apologies for the above picture.  It seems that I couldn't help myself.

Longitudinal Rivet Line of F-779 to F-773, 4/18/03.  After solving the assembly order for the J-channels below, I got to the point where I wanted to cleco the longitudinal line of holes that would join the F-779 tail cone to the F-773 side skins (red arrows bottom picture).  But the holes were not to be coerced toward the front and got worse closer to the F-711 and F-712 bulkheads.  I tried using a large scribe to lever holes together and work a cleco into the adjacent hole, but the holes were too far apart and the scribe was just deforming the holes.  I thought about making a 'sling' - a belt or rope with turnbuckles on it that I could draw up the F-779 to the F-773.  This is what another chapter member did with some ratcheting motorcycle tie-downs.  But that would have required a 'plate' of some sort to put the pressure 90 degrees to the side skins, essentially putting the force against the top of the side skins and F-711/F-712 bulkheads so that the side skins would not be bowed in near the top of the bulkheads.  That seemed like a solution that would work, but one that involved too much work.  I decided to try two things.  

First to get the bulkheads to sit down closer to the F-779 tail cone, I would clamp them to my work bench and take the vixen file to the outside flange points right at the relief holes.  (See top picture)  These areas protruded though I has hit them on the Scotch Brite wheel.   With the vixen file I just took the high point off so that I could file "around" the curve without the file grabbing the high point.  

The second thing was simply a difference approach.  Now that it's together, I'm not certain that the new approached was needed or if just cleaning up the flange curve would have done it. But I think what I did made sense and I'd do it the same way again (RV-11?).  I had originally clecoed the holes pointed to with yellow lines and then found that I could not draw the 'red' holes together.  Here's what I'd suggest: 

The second picture shows the ends of the J-channel.  I didn't quite get this at first.  The top channel will fit against the F-706 forward bulkhead and the lower one shown in the picture against either the F-711 or F-712 rear bulkhead.

The construction manual tells you to 'complete' the ailerons and flaps before installation.  But then there's the small mater of machine countersinking the flap brace and flap spar.  To my way of thinking, you need to final drill these rivet joints as part of setting the flap position with the flap hinge.  And then take the flap apart to machine countersink the spar before final assembly of the flap. 

Sometimes I'm pretty slow.  So when the light bulb finally lit, I truly felt enlightened.  Just in case there's someone else that shares my occasional weakness on the uptake, I'll share my joy.  The second picture is from the "Methods" manual.  I've circled the call out for washers A and B.  Here's the deal - when current runs through a joint of dissimilar metals, corrosion will occur.  So, your spar is aluminum.  You do not want it to corrode.  Luckily, the washers carrying current to the spar are also aluminum, so not being dissimilar, no corrosion will occur between that joint, i.e. you life-maintaining spar.  But, and here's the part I didn't get, the hardware touching these washers are cadmium plated steel so corrosion will occur between that joint, i.e. the face of the aluminum washer away from your spar and the cadmium plated hardware.  So, the aluminum washers and the cad stuff touching it are sacrificial!  Is that cool or what.

I second the Duck's suggestion to cover the lens with masking tape while you're working on it.  And since I've heard lots of horror stories about plexi-glass and it's November in Michigan; even with a heated work shop which I set to 60 degrees when I'm working, then lens was not going to be over 70.  Since warm plexi cracks less easily, I started out by putting it in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 120 degrees, which involved running to the house and "waiting".  On the last major step - enlarging the holes to 5/32 and countersinking them - I realized that a pail of hot water in the shop would be the best solution.  Before starting each countersink, I gave the lens a 1-2 minute bath. 

Third, the 'tip', I didn't notice until I had the tank screwed all the way down with 'about half the bolts and screws' per the construction manual, that one five inch section of the tank skin was slightly overlapping the leading edge skin, progressively getting worse at the main spar intersection.  Once I discovered this, I thought I'd take it off at some point in the future and file the tank edge to eliminate the overlap.  I didn't realize that 'future point' would come so soon.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but if I were rivet the open hole in the main skin just above the tank/leading edge intersection, the rivet gun would do some serious damage to the overlapping tank skin.  Even though your tank skins fit perfectly when you were final drilling all the holes before starting the Pro Seal adventure, there's apparently no guarantee that they'll fit perfectly after you do that and all the dimpling etc.  So, before you screw all the screws and bolts in, check your fit all around for any stretches that might now overlap.  That way you'll only have to take your tank off once for the initial wing fit to the fuselage.   

What worked well for me and my bucking buddy was to clamp the spar to a 4"x4" block of wood sufficiently long so that the leading edge is held off the work bench as shown.  My work bench is normally affixed to the wall via a couple of studs anchored in the wall going through a angle iron brackets with wing nuts to keep it solid for things like hack sawing in the vice.  But the bench is on wheels and the wings nuts allow for quick "release", which gives me a work surface ideal for this situation - me on one side with the riveting gun and John on the other side with the bucking bar. 

I took the smallest bucking bar that came with the Avery tool kit and cut the notch shown at the lower-right corner so that it would fit between the flanges of the aileron spar.  Since the angle was too acute as is, I added a wedge of oak, cut about 8.6 degrees.  You can't really see the wood because of the tape, but it's between the nylon "anti-scratch" shim and the bucking bar.  It gave me an angle that matched the angle of the top spar flange to the web - perfect shop heads!  There are a couple of rivets that are right in line with the "web" of a skin stiffener and no amount of angling the bucking bar would get us on the tail.  For that we ended up taping a smallish cold chisel to one of the lead counterweights for the empennage. 

As of this date, it is not spelled out on the Proprietary Software site http://www.angleofattack.com/, but Jim Frantz confirmed via email that the RV-7/7A has the same recommended data as the RV 4, RV6, RV8, i.e. Middle of the outboard wing bay. Upper port 4 3/4" and lower port 7 1/2" inboard of the wing skin outer end.  6" forward of the wing skin break about 12" aft of the leading edge.  Closed by 1/3 thru full flaps - Set up the flap switch so that it is mechanically closes with flaps up and mechanically open when flaps not up (down). Electrically, the switch will be open with the flaps up because you will use the normally closed lug (NC) and the common lug (COM) leaving the normally open lug (NO) unconnected. Above is a simpler way to install and wire up the flap micro switch.

The first picture shows my technique for finding the location for the drain tube exit from the bottom skin shown in the bottom picture next to the bottom pressure port.  Cut a dowel to an appropriate length and sand it to just slide into the top port block.  Slide it out next to the bottom skin, mark and drill.

After drilling the hole to the 3/8" size with a unibit and finding that the tube will not slide through, I'd suggest using a very small drum sander or small round file to enlarge the hole just to the point where the tube will slide through.  I went to 7/16" figuring that the tube didn't fit at 3/8", so my "slop" would be less than 1/32". It looks too sloppy for me, but all I can think to do is rivet in a small "patch" from the inside that has the correct sized hole.

I was tempted to use the rivet gun and bucking bar to do the skin-baffle rivet line since I thought the squeezer seemed to 'dimple' the surface more than the gun.  But since the manual calls for the pop rivets and Z-brackets to be done first, leaving little room for a bucking bar and I was sure the gun would take longer, I used the squeezer.  I'm glad I did.  It took a long time as it was - remember the pot life of Pro Seal is short.  The rivet line is perfectly flat, although it seems that I should have countersunk the skin maybe just a hair more.  Some of the rivet head edges can be felt.  I'll have to check at the chapter meeting this Thursday if it's OK practice to smooth these with some 600 grit.

A-409 (aircraft grade galvanized water pipe)  & A-802PP, 7/13/02.  I’ve got the aileron leading edge skin neatly drilled and clecoed to the aileron leading edge ribs and to the aileron spar.  Now I’d like to drill the skin to the water pipe/counterbalance and I find that I have almost a 1/16” gap between the skin and the pipe.  It would seem that that condition exists because the pipe is actually 27/32” OD, whereas the full-scale blue prints show it as 1”.  (If it were 1” OD, I’d have a different problem.)  What I will probably do is install shims between the pipe and the aileron rib to move it forward next to the skin.

My question is this – did Van’s get a different size water pipe from their supplier without noticing?  Is there that much variability is aircraft grade water pipe? BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, is the pipe I have, if shimmed into good riveting position, going to be heavy enough to prevent flutter at 200+ mph?  I’ll work on something else until I get some feedback.

Van's Tech Support reply: The pipe has always been about 7/8OD. You can just rebend the tabs on the ribs to move them out further if there is a gap. The weight is not an issue as the ailerons are not fully balanced like the elevators. Some builders have filled it with lead to balance the aileron, but that is not intended or necessary.