Wow has it been a month. Our oldest graduated High School. Our youngest is back at his Volleyball Nationals run, and I’m 2 weeks into a new job. It’s a wonder we got anything done on the RV-8 this month. Although total hours spent wasn’t significant, we were able to knock out the final hurdle to getting the cockpit flooring permanently in… which included priming the fairings, and installing the flap intersection fairings. Sam and I topped off all the work with a late evening session enjoying pop rivet installation of the cockpit flooring permanently. My next build will DEFINITELY be pop rivets!! They are 100x easier that standard rivets… ha ha.
We started with Priming. My co-workers son who is interested in mechanical engineering came down to help with the day. The most challenging part was getting the fuselage taped off to prime a specific section. Once the flap intersection fairings is on, it will be difficult to get the skin primed there, so we decided to try priming in the booth while we were printing the other fairings. It turned out pretty well!
Next up was riveting up the flap fairings. James and I had boo boo’d a bit with the initial fiting of the. Left fairing, so we had some rivet work to do to clean up the extra holes. James worked a little filing magic and after paint I don’t think you’ll be able to see a thing!
The final event was the long session with Sam to wrap up the flap intersection fairings install. I thought we would finish up at that, but with a bit of luck, our schedules lined up to allow for an epic all day close out of the cockpit flooring as well. Since this was the last time we’d have access to the underfloor, We did a thorough inspection for FOD, and added a couple spare conduit in case we wanted to added wiring in the future. With a last check that everything was installed, we riveted away!! An exciting way to close out June!
The wings are done. The Empennage is done. The fuselage is done. Wow. It’s been an almost 4 year journey so far with many ups and downs, but such a big milestone to get to stage. My engine is arriving just in time, and avionics finalization is just about to happen. It’s mile 21 of the marathon, but so much left to do. Can’t wait to get started on the finish kit in July!! (As soon as all my travel is over.. ha ha). Until then… Happy building!
1 comment
Great milestone. Congratulations