Leading Edge to Main Spar Done!

At the moment you think all hope is lost (read the last post), Van’s comes along and gives you a step that is very straight forward, and extremely satisfying to remind you that the build is fun and eventually you are going to finish with some sort of flying machine. Today was one of those steps. With the ugly rivet episode behind me, I spend the evening squeezing the spanwise rivets of the leading edge to the main spar. Everything just worked. I did have to drill out a few mis-squeezed rivets, but this was quite easy with the infinte room I had to manipulate the drill. After squeezing the rivets, I did the next step of putting the fuel tank back on, and screwing in half the screws. (I’m not sure why they only have you put in half the screws for now. Maybe it is coming off again?). Thanks Todd for keeping me company during the build, and hopefully next time I’ve got a more two person job for us to do.

Airplane building is all about the community, and I love having folks come by and shoot the breeze for a bit. Does it slow down my productivity time in the hangar? Absolutely, but I wouldn’t give it up. I’m in no rush to build this plane, and building those relationships is just as important. Bob (building an RV-3) and his neighbor Tim (Nice to meet you!) came by to check out the build progress. Bob has been building his RV-3 for over 10 years, and he is very close to completion. It is a beautiful machine and I look forward to it’s first flights. Thanks for coming by! And for the rest of you, if you’re ever in town, come by and squeeze a couple rivets with me. Until then…. Happy Building!

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