Alex's Vans RV-10 Build Log

 I clecoed the front spars to the elevator ribs and skins, and prepared to blind rivet the spars to the ribs. Front spars attached to the elevators All blind rivets were easily set using the pneumatic rivet puller. Blind rivets holding the front spar to the ribs (photo taken after completing other riveting below) While attaching the front spars, I noticed some slight oil canning in the middle panel of the bottom left elevator skin. It looks as though the skin is under some compression from the rivets attaching it to the rear spar around that panel. I did some research and decided that I want to try to fix the oil canning rather than letting it be. This will, however, involve drilling out up to 25 rivets along the bottom left rear spar in the trim tab area. I will then re-rivet the skin to the rear spar while applying some opposing force to the spar so that the skin remains tight when that force is removed. Thankfully re-riveting can be done using the pneumatic squeezer for these rivets

As I have some additional work coming up on the elevator trim tabs, I decided it would be a good time to prime all these pieces. The main reason for priming these now is that I will next need to bend the trim tabs to their final positions. Once that is done, it will be very difficult to prime inside the trim tabs, so better do it now while the skin interiors are more accessible. Trim tab parts taped and ready for EkoEtch Parts prepared with EkoEtch. I also etched the close out tab sides that will sit on the inside. Everything primed with EkoPrime Primer used ~40g + 4g distilled water Time Taken:      1.6  hours Dates:                    December 11 2022 RV-10 Build Total Time:      227.6  hours Priming Total Time:               26.4  hours  (not included in build time totals)

Now that the rear spars were attached to the ribs, it was time to rivet the skins to the rear spar. Again, I started on the bottom right skin and set the rivets along the open side of the spar using the pneumatic squeezer.  I did leave the last 4 holes open as I will later need to reach inside to rivet the gusset to the root rib. The plans don't specify leaving these 4 holes open (only the holes along the forward spar) but I figured I would have some additional flexibility reaching inside if I did so, and I can finish riveting those later as I won't lose access to them. Rear spar riveted to bottom right skin Next up I riveted the skin to the rear spar along the underside of the skins behind the trailing edges. These had to be bucked, but this was relatively easy with the rear spar placed at the edge of the work bench as the plans illustrate. All bucked rivets came out really nicely. Bucked rivets along the rear spar to the skin... ...and from the top side rivets and skins are f

Now it was time to begin riveting parts to the elevator skins. First up were the trim cable access panel doublers. Before riveting these to the bottom skins, I had to attach the nutplates to the doublers. This was easily accomplished with the pneumatic squeezer. Nutplates riveted to the access panel doublers... inside... ...and outside I then proceeded to back rivet the doublers to the skins as instructed in the plans where AN426 3-3.5 rivets were called for. I ran into a couple of issues here I noticed the rivets had a tendency to lean over as I was back riveting even as I held the rivet gun as perpendicular and tight to the doubler/rivet as I could. A search of the VAF forums suggested that the lean may be caused by the rivet being too long (and it did protrude more that twice the diameter when inserted) and/or by the hose air pressure being too high. The bent over rivets were noticeably worse on one of doublers, and I ended up drilling out several of them and setting replacements wi

I started working on assembling the elevators, and this process begin with putting together the tip ribs. I am assembling the elevators in parallel, so everything I do once on one elevator has to be done again as a mirror image on the opposite elevator. The tip rib halves were assembled using the pneumatic squeezer and the flange nose yoke. No issues here other than having to adjust the squeezer in place, because once adjusted to the correct squeeze depth there was no longer a way to get the yoke over the flanges. Left and right tip rib halves riveted together... ...also seen from the other side I then started riveting the counterbalance rib skins to the ribs, again using the pneumatic squeezer. All except the last 6 holes on each side were riveted at this time. I initially clecoed the right counterbalance skin to the left ribs, and set about 10 rivets before I realized my mistake. However, drilling out those rivets was easy and I'm glad I realized the mistake before setting all th