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.
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| Seat floor assembly parts pulled from storage |
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| 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 |
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| All nutplate holes final sized and countersunk as needed. Parts ready for priming. |
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| Seat floor assemblies primed and ready for nutplate attachment |
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| All nutplates attached to seat floors with the pneumatic squeezer |
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| 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 assembly to the forward fuselage. Prior to riveting the firewall to the bottom skin, I applied a thin layer of 3M Fire Barrier 2000 sealant in between the mating parts as recommended in the plans, and then riveted the assemblies together leaving a few holes open as outlined in the plans.
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| Firewall assembly ready to be mated to the forward fuselage section |
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| A bead of 3M Fire Barrier 200 sealant applied to the firewall mating surface on the bottom skin prior to riveting the firewall in place |
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| I also applied the 3M sealant to close off any openings in the corners of the firewall recess |
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| The sealant prevents gases from passing from the forward firewall area into the cabin |
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| Recess fully sealed at the edges and corners |
With the firewall riveted, I carefully lifted the forward fuselage onto its side to continue riveting the tunnel section and GHA15 antenna doubler.
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| Forward fuselage carefully placed on its side and supported by the firewall. It helped not having riveted anything forward of the firewall at this time |
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| Rivets set in the tunnel ribs to the bottom skin with my daughters help |
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| Plenty of access to easily rivet the tunnel ribs in place |
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| Tunnel and GHA15 antenna doubler fully riveted |
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| GHA15 antenna doubler securely held with only the attachment screw and antenna holes left open |
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| Doubler shop head came out great and doubler is nicely centered in the tunnel |
I then completed riveting of the tunnel to the forward fuselage bulkhead, and the firewall to the forward fuselage ribs.
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| Left tunnel rib angle rivets bucked to the forward fuselage bulkhead... |
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| ...and the same for the right tunnel rib angle |
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| Right forward fuselage ribs bucked to the firewall. No issues here! |
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| Left forward fuselage ribs bucked to the firewall |
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| LP4-3 pull rivets used to attach the F-1049D forward fuselage ribs to the tunnel ribs |
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| Pull rivets set well within the tunnel |
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| Very happy with how clean the rivets attaching the forward fuselage ribs to the firewall look |
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| Firewall to bottom skin rivet shop heads that were squeezed using the pneumatic squeezer also look good |
I then attached the forward center section bulkhead to the "growing" forward fuselage assembly by sliding the top flange into the slots in the tunnel ribs and clecoing it to the tunnel rib flanges. With the bulkhead in place, I proceeded to bolt and rivet the center section bulkhead to the tunnel ribs.
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| Forward center section bulkhead positioned in place for final attachment |
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| I used Knipex pliers when space got tight to hold the nuts securely while torquing bolts from the opposite side |
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| Prior to mating the forward and aft fuselage assemblies, I followed the recommendation on the rv10.org wiki and riveted the nutplate that sits between the center section bulkhead spars to the bottom skin. This is much easier to do now while access is plentiful |
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| Forward center section bulkhead fully bolted and riveted to the tunnel rib aft flanges |
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| Torque seal applied to bolts, and rivet shop heads looking good, right side... |
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| ...and left side |
I was finally ready to mate the forward fuselage section to the aft fuselage section. To hold the two sections together via the spars, I had purchased 8
1/2-13x5" bolts on Amazon, and additionally 4
23/64"x12" steel rods from McMaster-Carr that I then cut into 6" lengths. This combination of bolts and rods fit into the wing attach holes in the spars with minimal play to provide alignment while avoiding any damage to the existing holes.
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| Steel rods fit nicely into the wing attach holes to align the center section spars (discoloration in rods occurred during grinding to cut them to 6" lengths) |
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| After carefully sliding the fuselage sections together, taking care to ensure the skins were layered correctly, I inserted the correct combination of (previously deburred) spacers between the spars and inserted the rods and bolts to hold everything together in alignment |
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| Fuselage is definitely taking shape, and space, in my garage |
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| For now, the fuselage fits onto my 8' workbench, but I'll quickly need to build a fuselage cart as I'll need my workbench to continue building |
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| Spacing looks good on the spars, but I need a better way to hold the steel rods in place as they have a tendency to slide out if pushed |
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| I also inserted bolts in the locations that will later be used to secure the landing gear mounts. All bolts slid nicely through the holes in the spars validating that spar alignment was correct |
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| I 3D printed some TPU sleeves to fit snugly over the steel rods and prevent them from sliding out. These work really well and look better than having tape all over the rods |
With everything securely in position, I was able to continue riveting the fuselage halves together.
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| Systems brackets and tunnel ribs fully riveted to bottom skin |
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| Center section bulkhead flange riveting in progress. These were bucked, most of them fairly easily |
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| My 45 deg. angled tungsten bar just fit under the seat ribs to be able to set rivets there |
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| Aft center section bulkhead flange fully riveted on left side... |
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| ...and right side |
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| Flange rivets within the tunnel were tricky to get to due to the long reach required. By standing on a step, and leaning on the center section bulkhead, I was able to comfortably hold the bucking bar in place to set those |
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| Center section bulkhead flange rivets were riveted by balancing the fuselage on a couple of saw horses. This allowed my daughter to sit underneath with the rivet gun and myself to work with the bucking bar on top. The workbench along with another folding table were strategically placed to prevent any mishaps in case a saw horse failed! |
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| Wood that will be used to build my fuselage cart used to raise the fuselage support to a height that allowed me to put moving blankets next to the bottom skin to prevent the fuselage from tipping |
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| Clamps added to hold the bulkhead spar sections in complete parallel alignment while riveting otherwise there was a slight bow in the spars due to the weight of the fuselage pulling down at the fwd and aft ends |
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| To set the rivets within the tunnel in the flange of the aft center section bulkhead, I taped the tungsten bucking bar to the long empennage bucking bar and used that to set the rivets. This was necessary due to insufficient space to comfortably reach my hand between the spar and the vent attachments in the tunnel |
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| Bottom skin riveting complete with all rivets nicely set. |
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| The seven rivets at each end of the fwd center section spar flange were double flush riveted. Most of these were reached using the pneumatic squeezer |
Next I bolted the forward fuselage bulkheads in place. Most of these were easy to torque down, but there was limited space inserting the bolts between the inner seat ribs and the tunnel ribs resulting in these taking a little longer to torque to spec.
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| Bottom skin riveting complete. The two forward rivets are left open as they |
will be used to attach the forward fuselage side skins in the next section |
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| Bulkhead rivets were easily bucked or squeezed |
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| Pull rivet set nicely where there is no access to get a bucking bar positioned comfortably |
Primer used: ~70g + 7g distilled water
Priming Time Taken: 1.3 hours
Time Taken: 17.8 hours
Dates: June 4 2025 - July 16 2025
Fwd Fuse Ribs, Bhds & Bottom Skin Total Time: 59.5 hours
RV-10 Build Total Time: 1079.5 hours
Priming Total Time: 134.8 hours (not included in build time totals)
