Our Van’s RV-7A project (Wing update #4) - Riveting the Bottom Skins!

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome back to our YouTube it's been a little over a month since our last RV 7A update and I am happy to say that we have finished riveting the wings and are ready to attach the wingtips in this video we're going to talk about the type of rivet gun we used how we set the wings up to rivet and some general tips we learned that made this whole process a lot easier we also took a drive up north to visit an EAA chapter who was hosting someone we all eventually have to meet [Music] we ventured out to Connecticut to the EAA chapter 27 meeting got an email from EAA about there being a presentation from a Dar and we figured building an RV building other planes why not come out and see what it's about great group of people big group of people was actually overflowing out of the the room you know they won you over when it's worth the hour and a half drive that we'll be back or half hour flight we don't have an active EAA chapter nearest on Long Island so it was really fun and refreshing visiting this chapter it was so welcoming and it was nice to talk to other builders who are actively flying the airplanes they built it gave us a shot of renewed excitement to get home and finish the wings so let's focus on those bottom skins starting with the access panel [Music] we just drilled out and deburred the rivet holes for this little nut plate we're gonna enlarge these and then we're going to Dimple them let's go [Applause] [Music] [Applause] cover fits on nicely screws on when we're done and that's the final prep we need for the skin we've been prepping these skins on and off for the past month and if you want to see more and learn an awesome tip to remove the blue protective vinyl on the Skins you can watch that here the plans recommend filing the skin where it overlaps with the inboard skin lots of advice on Van's Air Force about how to do this using the dremelon files followed up with some sandpaper worked for us [Music] we ordered one of these Edge rollers from Aircraft Spruce and are so glad we did it puts a nice crease on the edge of the skin and makes it blend really nicely bottom of the skin is primed we're running out of excuses of why we can't start riveting our compressor broke so emergency trip to Harbor Freight picked one up foreign [Music] some people choose to rivet the bottom skins with the wing laying flat on a workbench we decided to rivet with the wing vertical in the stand in part because of my height I was too short to be able to reach the middle of the wing as I'm wielding the gun that's needed to not be a struggle for me as you can see Cliff definitely got the short end of the stick with bucking there were some interesting positions going on reaching that rear spar foreign can be done with one person I think it has to be a lot easier with two and I really applaud every Builder who did this single-handedly because this was stressful I don't mind admitting that tears were shed over some of my first riveting attempts and even with lots of practice rivets there's something different when you're holding the gun up to your actual project this would be a good time for us to talk about the Ribbit gun it actually took us a while to figure out what type of gun we wanted to buy for this project two times or three times there are so many discussions online about this but we decided on the three times gun while we could have finished the entire project with it it is slight overkill for the size of rivet you use for the wings and I can personally say that I felt like I didn't have full control of the rivet gun until we broke down and bought a two times gone Midway through which is slightly smaller and essentially gives lighter and more blows per trigger squeeze me feeling comfortable with the two times lowered my stress level and definitely Cliffs as well everyone is around with the Riveter and the book we kind of just developed the way we do it is when I get it on the back I say okay okay JD stabilizes it I say go ahead go ahead she rivets depending on how much more I think it's gonna either be keep going a little bit more one more and then good a little more one more good all right here we go it's starting to spawn any Builder who refused to wear a tube sock on their arm while bucking through the lightning holes probably had an arm that looked like this and I just want to let you know that you're on the nerve is seen and appreciated as you can see in this shot we have purple tape separating the outboard two bays this is simply showing the reach that Cliff had through the lightning holes from the wingtip so we knew we could finish riveting that forward Spar without those done I went to Staples on a mission to find the perfect rivet back tape but I am happy to report that after testing a few different Scotch tapes they all removed the exact same from aluminum and it does not matter in the least Cliff used the tungsten bar the most consistently although there were some rivets along the rear spur that he preferred the other for its reach again there's a lot of advice to use a swivel head on the rivet gun but we ended up sticking to the mushroom head and it worked just fine overall we're so happy that the riveting is done on the wings definitely a satisfying job but also pretty stressful we've taken a break the past few weeks to get some flying in some needed Springtime homeowner maintenance and to enjoy the warmer weather but we are looking forward to getting these wing tips on and the wings out of the garage hopefully by Memorial Day as always thank you so much for watching and please subscribe see you next time [Applause] don't get too cocky but I would rather tell you a little bit more

Channel: Cliff and Janie

Views: 3,746

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Id: 5snbdzFCSOA

Length: 7min 13sec (433 seconds)

Published: Wed May 17 2023