Alex's Vans RV-10 Build Log

Prior to heading to Oshkosh for Airventure 2025, I decided to build a fuselage cradle following these plans  that were referenced on rv10.org . I had previously purchased all the required lumber and cut it to length, so it was a matter of just following the provided instructions for assembling everything together. I did, however, make a couple of small changes as I put the cradle together. These are described in the photo captions below. Fuselage cradle lumber cut to size The first modification I made was to widen the space that holds the spars to accommodate the 6" spar alignment rods An advantage of widening this space is that the side pieces can be unscrewed for riveting the side skins in this area in section 29 without having to move the fuselage I also modified the rear support as suggested in the RV-10 wiki. This will allow me to remove it later for riveting the tailcone. Here I have the fuselage supported by some foam to give me room to cleco side skins when I get to attach...

While waiting for some help to complete riveting of the firewall assembly to the forward bottom skin, I decided to take care of assembling the left and right seat floor assemblies. These were very straightforward to put together - after making sure they were oriented correctly per the diagram in the plans. Seat floor assembly parts pulled from storage After deburring all the edges, there are a number of nutplate attach holes that needed to be countersunk and screw holes that needed final sizing. Nothing too complicated once I had determined which parts would be left and right, and oriented them correctly All nutplate holes final sized and countersunk as needed. Parts ready for priming. Seat floor assemblies primed and ready for nutplate attachment All nutplates attached to seat floors with the pneumatic squeezer Seat floor angles were also easily attached with the pneumatic squeezer, again making sure they were oriented correctly Next it was time to permanently attach the firewall asse...