RV-14 Build

Yesterday I was able to install the flap motor channel and flap motor brackets, and today I installed the baggage compartment side walls. Actually, I didn’t quite finish; there are some rivets I will need to buck tomorrow to wrap up. It is too late in the evening to start riveting.

The pop riveting is so fast, it’s really amazing how quickly and easily it all comes together. I wouldn’t attempt this without a pneumatic squeezer though, it would be painful to manually set these hundreds of rivets. I made extensive use of the “wedge tool”. I found it very useful to have a piece of tape on the little wedge so I could tape it into the correct orientation before setting the rivet.

Today I finished the baggage floor, and installed the splice. Then I installed nutplates on the flap motor bracket, which is now ready to install. Everything went well, except the final rivets between the floors and the side ribs. These holes were not well aligned, and I needed to ream them somewhat to get rivets into the holes.

Today I finished the pop rivets on the baggage floors. The remaining rivets, those between the floor and the rear bulkhead, need to be set with a rivet gun. It’s too late in the evening to be pounding rivets, so I moved onto the next step, and installed the seat back hinges.

More progress on the baggage floor riveting tonight. I worked mostly on the right side floor, getting it almost to the same point as the left side. This has been a relatively easy riveting job so far, although I’m saving the harder rivets until the end. Hopefully I can wrap up this step over the next couple of days.

Tonight I started riveting the baggage floor. I started on the left side of the fuselage, and set all of the pull rivets, except for those oblong the outside edge. For the edge, I think it will be easier to roll the fuselage onto the other side, so that gravity helps keep the squeezer correctly oriented.

It’s so easy doing pop rivets with the pneumatic squeezer, and I was able to cover a lot of ground in just an hour or so. It’s also quiet, and I was able to work on this late at night without keeping anyone awake.

Tonight I installed the baggage floors, final sized some nutplate holes, and then clecoed the floors to the substructure. before I started, I spent time carefully cleaning out the under-floor area. Using a damp cloth I wiped all the surfaces, then vacuumed everything with a brush-head fitting.

The next step is to rivet these floors down using a variety of rivets. I’ll be making good use of the pneumatic pulled-rivet squeezer, along with my hand squeezer, and rivet gun.

Tonight I just had a few minutes, and managed to complete a couple of steps installing nutplates on the baggage floors. This was very straightforward, nothing interesting to report.

Today I primed all of the baggage area parts. This included the floors and side panels, and flap motor bracket.

For some reason the paint job was not as good as I had hoped. I still need to figure out how to optimize the spray gun to get consistently good finishes. My guess is that I’ve not got the right ratio of paint to air, and that I’m blowing too little paint. The finish is rough, like a fine sand paper, which is possibly caused by paint particles that are already dry, sticking to the part. It’s not terrible, and it’s just primer, but I will soon be painting the cockpit, and I want it to look good.

Today I dimpled and countersunk the parts needed for completing the baggage area. Most of the work was dimpling the floors, but some countersinking was needed in a couple of places.

Dimpling was easy enough, although I made a mistake and dimpled the 4 CS-4 rivet holes using my regular #30 dimple dies with 120 degree dimples. I then realized my mistake and redid them with my 100 degree dimples dies. Not great, but it will be ok. I correctly dimpled the corresponding rib holes, after I carefully measured to make sure I identified the correct holes.