Alex's Vans RV-10 Build Log

Finishing up the remaining riveting from the firewall section of the plans, I finished riveting the rudder pedal support bracket to the firewall recess. These are tricky due to limited space within the recess for the rivet gun, but I was able to set all rivets using a 1" offset mushroom set. The rivet in the top corner of the recess was the hardest to set, but I taped some wood blocks to the recess to help prevent the mushroom set from wandering while running the rivet gun All rudder pedal brace rivets set in place With easy access to the rivet tails, shop heads formed well With this step taken care of, I'm calling the firewall section complete. I will still have to attach the stainless steel heat vents, but I'll do that later as I add additional components to the firewall. Time Taken:       0.3  hours  Dates:                    October 15 2025 Firewall Total Time:         ...

Continuing on with the forward fuselage, it was time to start riveting the recess and various angles onto the firewall. I decided to back rivet these, and placed some additional 3/4" boards under the firewall to support the flange off the workbench. Angles and recess clecoed to the firewall. I started by riveting the recess Backriveting continued with the F-1001C lower channel I was careful not to rivet any locations where rivets are shared with parts that have not yet been attached to the firewall. I also decided to use one rivet size larger than the RV-10 plans called for because I felt those were not quite long enough to obtain a shop head that would be within spec for both thickness and diameter. Angles and recess riveted to firewall (except where rivets will be shared with additional parts to be attached later) Next I riveted together the forward seat rail supports and added the required nutplates. These were all easy to rivet with the pneumatic squeezer and either the flange...

Going forward in my build log, I will start combining sections of the build into one log entry. The reason for this is that I am no longer completing a single section before moving to the next, and there is a fair amount of jumping around between sections as I optimize use of my build time and also figure out some of the customizations and modifications that I am making. This log entry combines parts of both the firewall (27) and forward fuselage and bottom skin (28) sections. With all firewall and forward fuselage parts prepared and ready for final assembly, I got everything primed over a few days in batches. First batch of parts ready for priming Next began assembly, starting with a lot of nutplates... Nutplates attached to the tunnel scat tube support Nutplates attached to the tunnel access panel doublers Tunnel access panel doublers were then riveted to the forward ribs (tunnel sides) Nutplates attached to the forward ribs Nutplates also attached to the outside of the forward ribs....