Scott & Tanya Card RV9A build log (N4822C)

After I got over the excitement of having the wings in the cart and the new look of the garage, I got back to work doing flap and aileron brackets on the trailing edge. This included fabricating a bunch of little parts from angle stock and a bunch of part deburring. This is a point where it is becoming more noticeable that the instructions are becoming much more scarce. The instructions say something like “…assemble and install the aileron brackets per drawing 13.” With something like twelve different parts in hand, my first response was, huh? (surely with that stupid look of confusion on my face). Ok, the confusion only lasted for a few seconds.

So, with much fitting, drilling, drilling, and more drilling, all of the flap and aileron brackets have been pre-assembled. I checked the center flap brackets to be sure they were inline. These pre-punched kits are amazing. Everything lines up. Next is to disassemble all of these parts for hole deburring and priming. Also, since I had to get the bottom skins back out to drill a few parts on the flap brackets, I decided that now is the time to dimple the bottom skins. So I’ll probably be dimpling for the next couple of days.

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

A momentous occasion indeed. Today I spent the better part of the afternoon (95+ degrees outside) sweating, chopping lumber, and putting it together into a wing cart where the wings will live until they fly. Ok, it was hot, but it was fun. After I got the cart built, Zach came over to see my wing jigs before I took them down. While he was here, he helped me move the wings onto the cart. It worked out very well as he is ready to re-erect the jigs at his place to build his wings. He loaded my wing jig up into his truck and off he went to build his wings. He is just inventorying his wing kit. Perfect timing! So, I’m left with more space in the garage and the wings turned the other side up ready for the next phase. I’m still racing my fuselage kit which ships in a couple of weeks. It will be interesting to see if I have the flaps and ailerons done by then.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

And there they are. The top skins are complete on both wings. This means that they are ready to be removed from the jigs. But before we do that I just couldn’t wait to do one more check for any wing twist. I’ve been keeping a close eye on it all along and been making very small adjustments in my rear spar clamping. The verdict is NO TWIST! I’ll take all the credit :) Actually, the kit is just that good.

This weekend I’ll build a rolling storage cradle and get the jigs taken down. It looks like I’m going to pass them along to Zach just down the street who is building a -7. You can check out his project here: http://www.sadecki.net/rv/

 

  

  

 

Standby, riveting top main wing skins…

We tried back riveting them but I didn’t like the results of the shop head very much. The back rivet set isn’t offset quite enough for the thin 9A wing. I’m guessing it would work better on a -7 wing. So all wing skins are being riveted normally with a regular mushroom set and bucking bar. So be it. It is a lot of rivets to drive and Tanya can only do a couple of hours at a time, so that is in process.

Update: 6/21/05
Still at it…
I concluded that we used a little (just a couple of pounds) too much air pressure on the rivet gun on the first wing which resulted in a little more denting from the flat set than I would have hoped. I turned the pressure down about 2-3 pounds (to about 25lbs before the hose) on the second wing and the results are much better. Note that we’re just talking about looks here. Ok, maybe a tenth of a knot of speed due to the slight rivet dents on the first wing. Yeah, whatever, I’m good with it. The next plane we build will be a show winner :).

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

The top main wing skins are almost completely deburred (holes and edges). Tanya put in some quality time with the deburring bit on many of the holes. I have one more skin to edge deburr. Then we can start dimpling :) Oh, yeah, I also made a first pass at the top skin scarf joints. A quick trial fit will probably show a need for a little more work on that.