1 hr
Deburred aft fuselage bulkheads and started fitting static port lines.

The SteinAir wiring kit arrived and spent about an hour taking inventory and just looking at all the new toys. The expandable sleeve wasn't quite what I had in mind. And I've already decided to add two more 12V DC power points. There will be one on the passenger side just below the panel, where the headset jacks will be, and I'm planning TWO in the back. They'll be always on, and fused for 2 amps. That's a possible recipe for running a battery down. I'm thinking they might go well in the aft flange of the 705 bulkhead. Oops. They can't go there. Maybe on the 785 backrest brace. I don't think they'll interfere with the flap mechanism if the power points are placed right.

5 hrs, 59 rivets
Deburr and drill nutplates in 785 backrest brace. Dimple.
Drill for nutplates and countersing 767 bracket.
Finish riveting bottom center section and bellcrank rib.

Rivet steps to fuselage. One of the Brother in Laws helped with this.

Thanks, John Boy!

Went over to Wayne's house to visit and get ideas about various items. He had a Andair gascolator that I will buy from him. He has a gorgeous new IO-390 and doesn't need the gascolator. He also lent a .3105 reamer for drilling the landing gear weldments. Unfortunately, I snapped it, so I get to buy a new one.

Start drilling main gear and weldments to .311.

6 hrs
Scuff, clean, prime, paint aft baggage bulkheads. Now that they're painted, I can finish installing the shoulder harness wear blocks.

At this stage of the project, there are too many things to work on all at once. So the project space gets a bit scattered. Or maybe it's because I've had a nasty head cold for a week and I can't focus....



Fit and drill 758 brackets to bottom of 766A. On the 9, this is a two piece bracket.
Fit and drill the 785B attach angle to the 785 backrest brace.
Fit the 766, 760, and 785 flap assembly parts to the floors and 705 bulkhead.
Disassemble, deburr, dimple.



Drill out several nutplates to allow riveting of seat and baggage skins to center ribs/nutplates.

Drill center ribs for nutplates to be used to hold adel clamps for securing wiring. Deburr, dimple. Got this ready to go, but I haven't figured out how to set the rivets yet. This is best done before putting the center section together.

Electric Flaps

7.5 hrs
Edge deburred all flap actuator parts.



Fabbed all small flap actuator parts.



Fit flap actuator weldment to 904 bulkhead.
Match drill center bearing block to baggage floor and rib.
Trim and edge deburr baggage center tunnel cover.
Drill safety wire hole in 661-EF.
Drill, deburr, and dimple 766A for nutplates.
Match drill 758 brackets, deburr.
Match drill 766C plate and drill 1/4" hole.

5 hrs, 24 rivets

Scuff, clean, prime, paint baggage side covers.
Remove 7112 and 775 skins. Deburr.
Remove 656 gussets. Deburr, prime, dimple (front only), and rivet. These seem like they're going to be a piece of cake. But they turn out to be a pain to get riveted properly. I'm finding several applications like this where an aligator squeezer may be the best tool for the job. It might have even more utility than the regular squeezer.



Remove and deburr 709 bulkhead and aft deck.
Start pulling flap assembly parts.



Drill clevis holes to 1/4 and deburr.

Time to go to dinner!

5.5 hrs, 34 rivets
Fit, drill, deburr, and dimple all F982 front cover parts.
Fit and drill Andair fuel valve to fuel valve cover plate.

This required a 1" cutout, and I didn't have a unibit that big. So the first order of business was a trip to Home and Aircraft Depot to buy a big-ass unibit. Sure is expensive, but that's the second time I needed it. Also picked up some Rustoleum primer, Hammered Black, and Hammered Silver paint. Other builders reported using Hammered Grey, and their pictures looked great. But I have been unable to find the grey in any Austin store after a year of looking. I'm at the point where interior decisions have to be made. Decided the silver would be a good choice, along with black highlights.

Scuff, clean, and prime valve cover plate and three aft cover plates. Shot primer first, then the Hammered paints. After getting these painted, I'm very happy with the results. The Andair valve looks very nice on the Hammered Black cover plate.



Rivet nutplates to all front cover parts.

Started trying a cutoff wheel to grind down the aft end of the floor stiffeners to allow the inboard gear weldment tab to clear. But that wasn't working well, so ended up using a Dremel bit to do the cutting. Taped a peice of .025 scrap to the bulkhead to avoid damage, a necessary step. Used sandpaper to polish it off. Again, this is much easier done before riveting the stiffeners in. A clearance of .125 is sufficient.




Decided to trial fit the landing gear weldments. They take a little coercing, but I'm happy that they will fit. Need to get them drilled, then they can be installed permanently. That needs to happen before fuel plumbing can commence.

Made a drift pin for wing/gear weldment fitting. That took about .5 of misc time.

3 hrs, 17 rivets
Deburred all 982 front cover parts. Used the polishing disks and die grinder for the 982C. Made it relatively easy.



Fit and drilled heat baffle to 982C center cabin cover. Dimpled, and then riveted, including the 5 nutplates.

Made 15/16 spacers for fitting center cabin cover.

1.8 hrs, 55 rivets
Finished riveting the seats. They make the fuselage look a bit more real.



Pulled all the parts for the forward section accessory covers. These are going to be a pain to deburr.



Placed a wiring order from Stein. It's a bit pricey, but this should last for a couple of more airplanes! Van's did get the finish kit order. No official date yet, but likely around the second week of January.

7.1 hrs, 87 rivets
A bunch of work today. There are a lot of rivets on the seats, and they take a lot of layout time.
Finished laying out drilling marks and then match drilled both seats. Realized I got the bottom hinge facing the wrong way. Fortunately, I had ordered some extra hinge material recently, so it was quick and easy to make new ones.



It was cool and overcast until about 2PM, then the Sun finally burned through. It turned out fairly nice, lots of planes buzzing over. Good thing, because the priming backlog was starting to hold me up.

Scuffed and primed tunnel cover and all seat parts.

Riveted the tunnel cover, and the seat back braces.





Start riveting seats. Mostly done with the right seat. Used a combination of the hand squeezer and the pneumatic squeezer.



I've been spending a little bit of time off the clock doing electrical system planning. I need to place an order for wiring very soon.

6.9 hrs, 8 rivets
Finish fabbing aileron trim assembly and fit to ribs and seat skin.




Drill seat tunnel cover to seat floor.



Countersink tunnel cover.
Drill for nutplates and countersink.

Start laying out seat back. Is anyone else irritated that Van's makes us cut a 1/8 inch off the bottom of these? Why didn't they just cut them the right lenght. Jeez.



Drill 637D hinges to 638 seat brace.

2.0 hrs



Back from SuperComputing 09 in Portland. No airplane tasks, too busy with the show to visit Van's. It's nice to be back and working on the project.

Radius 637C parts to fit in top corner of seat back.

Start preparing aileron trim parts. Modify bushing block and mounting plate. Drill bushing block to mounting plate.

1.2 hrs
Drilled and bent tunnel cover.
Trimmed and deburred tunnel cover Z brackets.
Last post for a few days. Off to Portland for SuperComputing 2009.
Sadly, no visit to Van's.

3 hrs, 60 rivets
Fit, trim, and drill left 6111 rib to aft skins. I can finally remove the top skins and finish up some riveting in the aft fuselage.



Rivet 637E hinges to seat skins.



Layout cuts for the 741 tunnel cover parts.



Looked at the instructions for the manual aileron trim. It looks like most of the work needs to happen when the control column is installed. I may get the angle plate deburred and drilled before then.

2.4 hrs
Drill 637E seat hinges to seat pans.
Deburr.

Order from Van's arrived. New 6111's, some hinge stock, AHRS mount, .063 sheet, manual aileron trim kit.



Edge deburr new 6111 ribs.
Trim, fit, and drill left 6111 to skin.

Went to the EAA187 meeting tonight and put down a deposit on the engine.

Got out in time to listen to the 4th quarter of the Cavaliers hosting the Crockett Cougars. (Crockett is in one of South Austin neighborhoods I used to live in. The kids playing tonight weren't even born yet when I lived there.) How a 4-6 football team got in the playoffs is beyond me. They had the bad luck of meeting the reigning State Champions in the first round. LT's Junior Varsity played the 4th quarter, and that is NOT an exaggeration. 58-7.

Still got home late, so spent less than a tenth getting the drill press setup to drill the 637E seat floor hinges, while dinner was being irradiated.

For Wednesday, Nov 11.
2.0 hrs
Cut .040 recess in 637B parts



Trim and edge deburr F638 seat back adjuster.


Mark 637E hinges for drilling to seat floor.

3.1 hrs
Arranged a visit by Seth Hancock and Deene Ogden, Chapter 187 Tech Counselors Extraordinaire! Deene had reviewed the empennage for me, a year and a half ago. During that time I built a set of quickbuild wings and a quickbuild fuselage. I had a bunch of questions they answered, and they provided guidance for many of the tasks I'll encounter soon.
They gave me a passing grade and told me not to worry about most of the small errors I pointed out.

Deene and Seth.

At this point, I'm about a year from finishing if I keep up the same rate.

Couldn't help it, got a little bit of work done after they left.
Fabbed 637B&C seat back angles. This meant cutting up the last two long pieces of angle stock shipped with the wing kit. It's a bit nerve racking, since cutting long stock means you no longer have long stock. And if you aren't paying enough attention, you just cut up a piece that you needed later. And that means expensive shipping to replace it. But I reviewed the plans one more time and checked my list of fab items requiring these two angles, and concluded that long angles are no longer needed. These are the last long parts I have to make. A few shorter parts still to do, but plenty of stock left for those.

Here's a growing pile of parts that will become the seats.

1.1 hrs
Made all the 637 seat back hinges. There's not much extra material to work with, so careful
layout is needed.
Placed a Van's order on Saturday, for the new 6111s. Also got:
3 feet of 1.5 inch hinge material. Plan to use this for baggage tie down points.
An AHRS mount kit. Not sure if I can use this. The pitch servo is less than a foot from
where the AHRS will be.
And a square foot of .063 2024 alclad. It's just handy to have some extra material.
Aileron trim kit. This needs to get installed soon.

Need to rivet the steps in. First I need to finish priming them. Which means some paint decisions are looming.

Need to order a wiring kit. The wings will need finishing soon because they will need to be fit for the first time.

For Sunday. Forgot to post
4.9 hrs
Trim and deburr 652 baggage bulkhead.
Fit and drill 751 and 652.



Trim, fit and drill shoulder harness cable wear blocks.

3.5 hrs
Actually spent almost the whole day on the plane, except for watching the Longhorns take on Central Florida.

Started with drilling the 708B angle. This is hard work, and three hands would be handy. Imagine a race of aliens that has four hands. Just think of the fantastic things they can build. I bet they wish they had six hands.



With the skins lifted up, drilled the front 656 gussets.
Edge deburred and started fitting 6111 ribs. The first thing I did was cut the left one too short. I started on the right side and got it mostly passable, but I ordered two new ones and will do it over.



The instructions and drawing are almost no help, except for defining the two boundary conditions. Look at Smitty's page, he got it right the first time, and has a good method. I think the trick is not to reduce the length at the top, just shape the flanges as Smitty shows.
Post Edit. They are already the right length. They only need some flange bevelling.

Cleco baggage compartment covers and floors. I'm not going to rivet these in yet.
Finish deburring seat backs. Started these a while back and just wanted to finish the tedious work.
Fit and match drill 751 baggage bulkhead. It all starts looking very cool!



The new 9 kits ( and probably the 7's) have a bend/bevel on one long edge of the 652 bulkhead. There is absolutely no mention of this in the plans. Currently asking around to see what others have done with this feature.

Oh, and I committed to buying an engine today, which means I have all the info I need to mail the finish kit order. The engine will be a O320-E2A, with 0 hrs since major overhaul, 160hp pistons and cam, chromed ECI cylinders, brand new Skytech starter, 60A alternator, freshly overhauled carb, and a Vetterman exhaust. I paid a bit more than I wanted to, and I really wanted a injection setup, but it will be a very good engine.

Also place an order with Van's for the 6111's, am aileron trim kit, an AHRS mounting kit, and a couple of other misc items.

1.3 hrs
Finish match drilling top aft skins, including stringers.



Gotta stop, LT football is live on the radio!

1.5 hrs
Finish clecoing 7112 skin to fuselage.



Fit new 708B angle to 787 and 708.
Start match drilling top aft skins.
Fit 709 bulkhead to skin.

1.5 hrs
Bevel 788 gusset
Strip plastic and edge deburr 7112 skin.
Cleco 787 rib to 706 bulkhead.
Start clecoing 7112 skin to fuselage

Back when doing the aft bulkheads, I had edge deburred the 787 rib and made a 708B bracket. I drilled it to the rib. I got it wrong. The fore/aft spacing is not right.

THAT's why the instructions have you make it now and then clamp and drill. It's just a short piece of angle with two holes drilled in it. Easy enough to do again.

1.5 hrs
Is any one else excited about the new Dynon SkyView pricing announcement!?! I'm thinking the panel just got a bit easier to design. The only big issue I see is that I can't set a heading bug on the Dynon and have the TruTrak follow it. But there are some forum threads that hint maybe there is a way. The Dynon will output heading and other info in ARINC format. And apparently there are converters that can adapt that to the analog error signal needed by the autopilot. Need to do some more research. Turns out I know a little bit about those kind of embedded comm applications.

Cleco 778 skin to aft bulkheads.



Cleco and clamp 656 gussets in place. Drill the aft two. Snapped the stubby #30 threaded drill bit while drilling around the corner. Dang.

1.3 hrs
Page 11.
Trim ends of 786A stringers. These were already cut to length back at the start of the aft fuselage construction.
Deburr, mark centerline, and tape to bulkheads.



Strip plastic from 775 aft top skin. Deburr edges. Only 2 more large skins to do this on.

6 hrs, 112 rivets
Not sure why it took that long. There was a bunch of shop cleanup time included in that.
Rivet 921B canopy decks to longerons. These took an hour apiece, which included the "file carefully to match the skin" part.



Rivet 695 gussets to forward fuselage. These are hard. Used the hand squeezer for all of them.



Start riveting 728 bellcrank rib to 706 bulkhead. There are four through-hull rivets that I can't reach alone. Back riveting might work, but there would be no way to get the back rivet set into the proper alignment. Would have finished more of the rivets to the 706 bulkhead, but my back was killing me. Leaning over to reach the center bottom of the fuselage is a pain. I might need to get Wayne's rotiserrie into play.



Prosealed static ports to fuselage.



The pile of parts on the shelf is getting very small. Need to get the finish kit ordered. It'll be a bit tricky, since I want to go with some Grove wheel parts. I need to start getting the details hashed out so the order is ready to send.