Alex's Vans RV-10 Build Log

While working around my daughter's school schedule to slowly rivet the bottom skins to the mid fuselage, I decided to start work on the firewall. After reading stories of other builders easily cutting themselves on the sharp edges of the firewall stainless steel, the first thing I did was to debur all edges and holes in the firewall and recess. The V-shaped deburring bit did a good job of cleaning the edges of the firewall flanges and larger hole edges. I used Boelube paste every few minutes to minimize dulling of the deburring bit. The standard hole deburring bit worked well to debur rivet holes in the stainless steel, but I did have to push harder to get the bit to bite the edge. Boelube was also used regularly here, however, I did decide to purchase a new deburring bit for future aluminum use and keep this one only for use on steel The edge deburring bit worked well enough to debur within the flange notches. However, as with the other deburring bits I used on steel, I'll ded...

To alodine the COM antenna doublers and spacers, I have been using Bonderite Alumiprep 33 for surface cleaning and Alodine 1201 for alodining. These are fairly easy to work with, however due to their toxicity I did take additional precautions by working outside, and to ensure that I didn't accidentally splash any chemicals on myself I wore goggles, gloves, long sleeves, and a respirator. Parts were dipped in a 5:1 solution of Alumiprep for about 5 minutes, then rinsed and dipped into a 3:1 solution of Alodine for another 5 minutes Doubler turning a golden hue while sitting in Alodine solution. I did find that the conversion was more effective if I moved the doubler within the alodine solution rather than letting it just site there After a final rinsing and drying, both sets of doublers and spacers were a similar color to my RV-10 wing spars After clecoing the spacers and doublers back into their respective rib bays, all that was left now to complete this section was to rivet the ...

Riveting the mid fuse together, I was able to use the squeezer to set the rivets holding the bulkhead side channels to the rear spar bulkhead.  All rivets squeezed except those that will attach the F-1015A and F-1018 ribs Factory heads were placed on the thinner material where possible With the F-1015A and F-1018 ribs in place, I was able to use the single offset rivet set to buck the rivets from the F-1018 rib side Space was tight, but I was able to hold a bucking bar in between the two outboard seat ribs to set all the rivets to spec Next, working from outboard to inboard, I riveted each rear seat rib in turn. Once again the single offset rivet set worked really well here to fit over the flange of the rib. I also placed all factory heads on the thinner rib flange where possible to eliminate the possibility of the flange warping while riveting, Setting rear seat rib rivets using the single offset rivet set At the very top of the rear seat ribs, the flange angle is too great to use...