Alex's Vans RV-10 Build Log

Time to prime! Now that I have several RV-10 parts that need to be primed, I decided to pause building and focus on priming. I have never primed metal before, and I have also never used a spray gun, so I needed some practice.  Parts Prep In order to get some practice pieces for priming, I decided to disassemble the first Van's trailing edge practice kit that I put together a couple of months back. This also gave me plenty of practice in drilling out rivets that I have not done a lot of so far. Drilling out blind rivets was easier than I thought it would be Drilling out the #40 countersunk rivets was easy enough, as long as I kept the hole centered. Small bursts of the drill when starting a hole helped to align the bit to the center of the rivet. One skin off, another to go Stiffener rivets were drilled out with the assistance of the vise A perfectly centered hole. Once deep enough, the head just pops off using a pin punch Growing pile of drilled out rivet heads and tails To drill o...

One more practice kit before I start working on my RV-10. Here I wanted to build another trailing edge to see if I had learned anything from my first attempt.  This time around I started by removing the blue film only over the rivet lines. Once the soldering iron gets to the right temperature (level 4 setting on mine), film removal is pretty easy. Parts prepared and ready to drill and rivet Match-drilling the skin stiffeners A vise is also very useful if working alone. Clamping parts in place makes for a much easier time when riveting those parts together. Trailing edge skeleton ready to rivet Match-drilling the skins I think I could have done a better job when drilling the trailing edge wedge, as the wedge was not clamped flush with the forward edge of the skins. It actually was a little behind the forward edge, and that resulted in some issues (discussed later) when riveting the trailing edge together.  I also didn't have a lot of success riveting the rib rivets closest to t...

Before starting on the RV-10 empennage, I wanted to try building another trailing edge practice kit. My goal was to compare it to the first trailing edge that I built back in May, and see if it looked any better, which I would hope would indicate that my skills (drilling, deburring, riveting etc) had improved.  So here I go again with the first part of the trailing edge kit...  Parts prepped for drilling I decided to try countersinking by putting the countersink cage in the drill press. This was the first time I used the countersink cage this way... previously I had always put it into the air drill. With the drill press, I found adjustments of the cage far more intuitive (turn bottom of cage to the right to go deeper, and left to go shallower on the countersink). Once dialed in, I was able to get consistent, perpendicular countersinks each time. I'll therefore be using the drill press to countersink whenever I can.  All other aspects of parts preparation including drillin...

Today I completed the Sheet Metal Basics practice kit that came with my RV-10 empennage kit that I received a few days ago. I compared this completed kit with another one I attempted a couple of months back to see if there were any differences. Overall, I think I did a better job this time around, or at least felt more comfortable working with the different tools, but this attempt was not without its gotchas outlined below. Read on... Starting pieces Skins drilled and match-drilled My first gotcha came when reaming holes from a #40 to a #30. On one of the holes, the reamer slipped out and slid across the surface of the skin making a very minor but visible scratch. I wouldn't worry about this if it was on an actual skin, but something to pay attention to. Angle piece cut and drilled... ...and match-drilled to skins All parts deburred, dimpled, countersunk, cleaned and ready for riveting My next two gotchas came in the final steps of skin preparation. The first was was when I was ups...

  The Van's Light Box kit was a lot of fun to build, and a project in which I got to make some decisions as to how I wanted to rivet the light box together. Parts laid out (and a big plan sheet) The first step was dimple the nutplates that would be used to attach the back cover to the light box. Once dimpled, the nutplates were riveted to the rear brackets using the pneumatic squeezer.  The next steps involved preparing the remaining parts for riveting. Here is where I got to decide which rivet types/techniques I would use to construct the light box. I chose countersunk AN426 3-3.5 rivets for the front panel AN470 3-3 universal rivets for the top panel LP4-3 pulled rivets for the bottom panel dimpled AN426 3-3 rivets for the side panels This would give me practice in setting several different rivet types, as well as back riveting, squeezing and bucking.  I did decide to use 3-3.5 rivets on the front panel, rather than the called for 3-3 rivets, as I felt that with the thi...