Alex's Vans RV-10 Build Log

While it appears I am jumping around in several wing sections of the plans, I am doing this because it allows me to make more efficient use of my time while getting help with riveting wing top skins, as my daughter (helper) is also busy with school and other activities. School will end soon for the summer break though, so that should allow me to finish up the top wings skins shortly after. In the meantime, I jumped into working on flaps, and after gathering all the parts mentioned in the plans, I started by checking that all rib flanges were at 90 deg. to the web. A pile of flap internal parts While working on adjusting the flanges of the nose ribs, I noticed that there is a flange on each rib that has no holes but is pushed outward (like a reverse flute) in the center. Checking the plans, I see that two holes will be match drilled into this flange later, so for now I decided to debur the edges of the nose ribs and flute the center of this flange properly. This makes it easier to adjus...

While I had time in-between getting help with riveting, I decided to tackle a small part of the bottom wing skins section, and work on the flap and aileron gap fairings. These are riveted to the top wing skin and rear spar, and can be installed as soon as the top skins are riveted on (assuming you will be going with an alternative to Van's suggested pitot tube). Flap and aileron gap fairings, and flap gap stiffener ready to be worked on I started by marking the flap gap stiffener for cutting into left and right parts. The were cut on the band saw, and then sanded and deburred to the correct size. Flap gap stiffener marked for cutting I then deburred the edges and holes of each of the fairing, and proceeded to dimple them where needed using the pneumatic squeezer. Here is where I got a little trigger happy with the squeezer on the left aileron gap fairing, and accidentally squeezed before the dimple die pilot was in the hole. This resulted in an additional hole being punched through...

Back at the end of June 2023, I was finally getting close to the end of the tail cone assembly, just having to rivet the aft top skin in place. I began this by clecoing the skin to the stiffeners, leaving the sides unclecoed.  Aft top skin clecoed to stiffeners and bulkheads I was then able to easily buck all the skin to stiffener rivets as well as rivets along the top of the F-1008 and F-1009 bulkheads. Aft top skin after riveting to stiffeners and top of bulkheads I was able to push the static lines slightly to the side to get the bucking bar against the rivets on the top left stiffener, being careful not to damage the static lines or attachment brackets Next, I clecoed one side of the top skin all the way down to the longerons, and bucked the remaining rivets along that side of the F-1009 bulkhead by reaching through the opening with the bucking bar. Skin riveted to right side of F-1009 bulkhead The remaining rivets in the top skin required a helper, so I temporarily (for almost...