Day 6 – Section 7 – Rudder

Today’s task was to get the trailing edge countersunk. I decided to do some fabrication first though. Looking ahead, I know I’m going to have to pro-seal my trailing edge and find a way to clamp it while the sealant cures. I saw a technique I liked that used a piece of aluminum angle to […]

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Squeezer

Day 5 – Section 7 – Continue The Rudder

Today I picked up with the task of match drilling the skins and ribs of the rudder. I kinda score in that I discovered MOST of the holes were already punched to “final size” at the factory. Some recently developed kits came like this, and I guess I lucked out! I felt like the trailing […]

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Day 4 – Section 7 – First time putting on skins

Today, I had a bit of time before bed and could not resist doing a bit of work. The mission was to prepare the trailing edge and fit the skins onto the skeleton of the rudder I have been working on. The first step was to deburr the rudder skins, which I had neatly tucked […]

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Rudder skeleton

Day 3 – Continue Section 7 – Rudder

Today started with marking up the rest of the skin stiffeners and a trip to Canadian Tire to get a new set of aviation snips. The new snips worked well on the strait cuts across the stiffeners, but when I had to get into corners, they were a bit bulky and did not do a […]

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Day 2 – Start Section 7 – Rudder

After waiting a few days and not hearing back from Vans since my big mistake on day 1, I decided to take some advice I got on the forum and continue building something else. Tonight I really enjoyed making parts. I was experimenting with different techniques for cutting including the bandsaw, tin snips, and a […]

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Day 1 – Start Section 6 – Vertical spar

After an inspiring week in Oshkosh at EAA AirVenture, I finally started actually building the plane! Things seemed to be going great, then I realized I had made a mistake. The instructions said to match-drill the spar caps on the spar web using 1/8″ holes. I did this and then realized that the holes on […]

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Setup air lines

The other night i ran some pex air hose around the perimeter of the workshop and installed multiple air stations to plug air tools into. Next week ill be at Oshkosh where ill hopefully get the hang of riveting so i can actually start building.

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Inventory (day 2)

Today was supposed to be a day to do some IFR flying, but the weather was garbage, so Bryan came by and helped me finish the inventory of parts.

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Inventory (day 1)

Tonight I started unwrapping the little bundles of sub-kits and counted parts. I discovered that my shelves are way too tall for the small parts storage.

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And so it begins! Empennage kit arrived!

About 2 weeks ago, my long awaited delivery of my RV-10 empennage kit finally arrived after about 6 months of anticipation. The delivery went a little sideways when the driver showed up and asked me “how do you want to get it off the truck”, but with the help of some friends, we got it […]

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