Well, it's been a long time since I've done anything on this project. Unfortunately I lost my job in September, and it took me a couple months to find a new gig. And now I'm making a heck of a lot less money...bummer! I guess that's the way it goes, though, with the economy and the state of the world and all that crap that's otherwise meaningless to a driven homebuilder. But it hit me pretty hard, unfortunately. To compound things, I've been trying to sell my Mooney 201. It's the best plane I've ever owned, but it's a financial burden at this point, and I really need the cash to be able to move forward with this RV project.
Anyway, this Christmas/Chanukah was pretty good to me. I got a bunch of stuff that I really needed, specifically the tools I'll use to install the fiberglass tips on the empennage components. I hadn't bothered starting with that work yet because I needed a second set of countersink bits (fiberglass tears these tools apart...you don't want to reuse bits on aluminum after fiberglass) and some filler. My parents in law came to the rescue, though, and got me some Super Fil and a handful of countersink bits. Now I have NO excuse for not working on this project.
I cleaned the garage and got organized again. It felt good. I decided that for my first venture into fiberglass work I'd start with the vertical stabilizer tip. It's my belief that this will be one of the least visible fiberglass components...thus a good place to start, possibly make mistakes, etc. Plus, the VS tip actually fits the best out of all the fiberglass parts I got from Van's. Gotta get my feet wet one step at a time. I've worked with body fillers on automobiles, like slabbing Bondo all over my old Volkswagen Super Beetle, but that doesn't really qualify me for any serious filling or fiberglass chores. I'm going to be pretty conservative and take my time. Ok, enough babbling about it. Here's the VS with the tip resting in place. Fits great.
The tip gets blind riveted to the stab, but you need to reinforce the fiberglass with strips of .025" alclad (that's what those blue-covered scrap sheets are...the extra alclad that Van's provides for stuff like this). The metal strips give the rivets something to grip so they don't work their way through the fiberglass. I hear that some people opt for a different approach, which involves using nut plates and securing the fairings via stainless screws. That's not for me. I want to fill over the gaps (thus the Super Fil) and smooth it out all nice. I don't ever plan on removing these tips. Here you can see one of the alclad strips that I cut, trimmed to size, deburred, and clamped in place. I used a basic Liquid Nails glue to tack these suckers in place.
Well, the glue is drying. Maybe later tonight, but most likely tomorrow, I'll drill this sucker to the stab, countersink the holes, and rivet this puppy on there. In the meantime, it felt good to be active on the project again. Good to cut metal, file and debur edges, break out the grinder with the ScotchBrite wheel, etc. I've missed this work. Gonna have to make sure I keep making progress while I generate the cash for the wings, regardless of the pace.
Update...as usual, a little wasn't enough. The glue dried pretty quickly, so I went ahead and riveted the tip onto the VS. It was pretty straightforward. Drilled #40 pilot holes and clecoed it solid while drilling out to #30. Deburred and dimpled the stab skin. Machine countersunk the fiberglass. Riveted the sucker on there.
There's actually very little gap between the fiberglass and skin. I could conceivably get away without filling this, but I'm going to do it anyway to make it as perfectly smooth as possible (yeah, right...we'll see). But for now at least it looks fine.
My wife was still at work, so why stop there? I sanded down the trailing edge of the rudder fiberglass tip until it fit properly.
I cut out and deburred the reinforcement strips for that tip...
...and glued/clamped them into place.
I already drained the compressor, so I guess I'll call it a night, and hopefully get this tip riveted on tomorrow.