Elevator Skins and Rear Spar

Continued assembling the elevators tonight, starting with the back-riveting of each rib half to the corresponding skins. The rib halves have a larger and a smaller part, and between the right and left elevators the larger part goes on either the upper or the lower skin, such that all flanges point outwards. The back-riveting process is briefly detailed below:

First, the rivets are placed into the holes (8 rows of 8 rivets, on each of the 4 skins) and then covered with rivet tape. Rivet tape only provides adhesive on the edges where the red color is, and is simply clear cellophane in the middle. This allows for holding the rivet in place, but prevents the adhesive from interfering with the rivet itself.

The skin is then turned over (with the tape holding the rivets in their holes) allowing the part being riveted, in this case the rib half, to be placed over the protruding rivets. Then, the rivet gun is used to set the rivets using a back-rivet attachment.

Next, the trim reinforcement plates were attached to the skins using the same back-rivet technique:

The trim reinforcement plate riveted into place

Lastly, the rear spar was riveted into the L-upper and R-lower skins (the skins that had the larger of the two rib halves on them). In the following picture, the front spar is shown also set into position, but it is not yet riveted into place.

Elevator Assembly Begins!

Assembled the elevator tip ribs and the front spars tonight. The tip ribs involved riveting the E-903 and E-904 tip rib halves together, and then laying the E-913 counterbalance skin over both parts. The final product looked like this:

The two elevator tip ribs after riveting the skins on

Inside view of the tip ribs after riveting together

Next, the hinge doubler plates were riveted to the elevator front spars, with the addition of a grounding nutplate next to the inboard plates:

Left inboard hinge doubler plate, with grounding nutplate off to the side

Both R and L elevator front spars, after assembly

Elevators - Day 6

Today was simple but very time consuming! Spent several hours deburring, scuffing, dimpling, and priming the elevator skins. I believe we are now ready to make some real progress on the elevators tomorrow, I think we're ready to turn the page to 9-10.1 which begins the final assembly process. It should be quite a "riveting" experience!! (groan)

Elevators - Day 5

Another short day today, but I was able to continue the preparation of all the elevator bits for final assembly. This included scuffing, dimpling, countersinking, acetone wash, and priming each of the many parts that make up the right and left elevator assemblies. All that is left to do now is dimple and prime the four skins, which I think I should have time for tomorrow! Shooting for Wednesday to be the day to begin final assembly of the elevators...

Today is also the 1-month anniversary since the empennage kit was delivered... wow it's gone by quick, but we've also gotten a lot done! It's way too early to make any guesses as to when this thing will actually be ready to fly, but I'm thinking that two years may not be all that unrealistic... I guess we'll see...

Elevators - Day 4

I was able to get a quick break in between some work and school obligations to do some final-drilling on the elevator skins (step 9-7.3). I skipped the steps about the trim anchor brackets and cover plate, since I'm waiting for my iflyrv10 trim anchors to arrive that I plan on using to replace the stock Van's ones. After drilling out all of the skin holes, I was able to perform the depressing task of disassembling the entire elevator assembly that I had just worked so hard to assemble, for more rounds of deburring, scuffing, cleaning, and priming.

No pics again from tonight, since they really would only appear to show backwards progress after disassembly...

Elevators - Day 3

Took a few days off from building, and had a pretty short night tonight for a Saturday, but got a lot done! Went from page 9-3 to 9-7, which involved clecoing together a mockup of all four spars, the 18 ribs, and the skins... it's starting to look like a pair of elevators!

The elevators, through step 9-7.2.

Things have been pretty busy with both work and school lately, and so I haven't had much time to build. If I'm lucky, I might get a couple more hours in tomorrow, but otherwise this is about as much as I might get done this weekend... still plenty more to do!

Elevators - Day 2

More work on the elevator, grabbing the necessary parts that make up the handful of subassemblies, deburring/drilling, and moving on to the next. After a few hours of this, I had all 16 rib assemblies, both E-903/904/913 counterbalance assemblies, the E-1022 shear clips, and the four skins prepped. Unfortunately no pictures tonight, but there really wasn't much to show... just a lot of slow but steady progress towards assembling these parts...

Elevators - Day 1

After a quick cleanup and reset in the workshop, it was time to dig up all the parts for the elevator and start fresh on a brand new section:

Starting on Section 9: Elevators

As with the start of every section so far, the first few hours of work involve a lot of tedious unwrapping, cutting, deburring, and drilling; ending up with a pile of parts that don't look all that much different from what they looked like at the beginning. The elevators were no exception-- in fact, they seemed to involve an even greater number of small parts, each of which needing the same precision and care as the last.

Mike rough-sanding the E-1008A/B ribs after cutting

After making 32 smooth, rounded-edge rib halves from 16 blanks, we decided to call it an early night... plenty more work to do on these!

Rudder Complete!

What a surge of motivation yesterday when we got to see a real, flying RV-10 and speak to its builder for hours! We were able to make quick work of the trailing and leading edges of the rudder, letting us check this box off just one day after checking off the HS!

Rolling the leading edge skin with duct tape and some 1.25" PVC pipe

Sarah setting the pop rivets into the leading edge... it was a little tricky applying just the right pressure to not have the ends of the skin bow either in or out.

The trailing edge after riveting: we used the same technique as on the trim tab, and I'm very pleased with the results!

The rudder with the trim tab installed: the rivet pattern matches up, and everything looks very straight!

Only two parts remain in the empennage: the elevator and the tailcone! We're both so pleased and excited with the progress we've made so far, but there is LOTS more to do... stay tuned for tomorrow, when we'll begin on the elevator!

Horizontal Stabilizer Complete!

A few short hours later, and I was rewarded with the completion of the biggest part yet on this journey! It's really incredible how strong (and light) the HS feels once it's all together, especially after feeling how flimsy all the pieces are by themselves... it truly is a real-life example of a whole being more than the sum of its parts...

The completed HS, right side.

The completed HS, left side.

Today was also a pretty exciting day because I got to see a real live RV-10 up close! Our local EAA chapter's flight advisor, Dave, who has a remarkably long list of accolades as both a pilot and a flight instructor... just so happens to have built one himself, and regards it as his favorite airplane. He was kind enough to invite Sarah and I up to his hangar and give us a full walkthrough... along with opinions, advice, and words of encouragement. Hopefully sometime soon we'll have a chance to go flying in it! For now, here's happy Mike sitting in the same model of plane he is building, for the first time: