Scott & Tanya Card RV9A build log (N4822C)

While I dimpled the stainless firewall with the C-frame and a hammer, Tanya was gracious enough to wash parts in prep for primer. Then she was there the next day to even mix the primer! Am I lucky or what? The only priming process that I haven’t been able to convince Tanya to try is actually shooting the material with the gun. She doesn’t like too much responsibility in this whole thing. If the primer comes out crappy, it is my fault. She has done the rest of the entire process more than once. That is just cool.
Firewall parts are dimpled, countersunk, and primed.

 

  

  

  

 

I continued my work on the firewall with fabricating the recess cover plate. I don’t need the center recess with my engine so I just made a flat cover with some 26ga. stainless steel from Vans. This stuff isn’t fun to work with and will dull any tool that comes near it if you aren’t careful. I got to looking at the plans and noticed a rivet callout for an An436AD4-6! This is obviously a mistake on the plans and should be an AN426. I then moved on to deburring, machine countersinking, dimpling, and preparing all of the firewall parts (except for the stainless firewall itself) for primer. With a little primer, I’ll be ready to rivet things together.

 

  

  

  

 

It was finally time to move the wings out of the garage and into the house for storage during fuselage construction. I took the flaps and ailerons off and Tanya and I hauled each wing out to the front lawn. We moved the cradle into the house and then hauled the wings in. Piece of cake. I then put the ailerons and flaps back on. They’ll be stored on the wing. We now have two long -9A wings in the living room for about the next year!

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Time to get going on the fuselage. The first step is to gather up all of the parts for the firewall. All of the stiffeners are clecoed to the firewall and some brackets and spacers are fabricated then match drilled. I ended up fabricating the large lower brackets twice because I didn’t position them correctly when match drilling them. They are supposed to be fitted directly up next to the angle on one side, but not so on the other side. They are supposed to be spaced 3/32″ off of the bottom angle. There was enough material in the kit to make a second set of brackets, but I’ll come up short later I’m sure. All of the firewall parts have been match drilled.

I’m not using the standard firewall recess. I’m making a flat filler panel out of stainless stock. That stuff is a trick to cut and deburr… Next up is to deburr, dimple, and machine countersink all of these parts.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

I’m declaring the wings finished (for now). I spent quite a bit to time setting up the flaps and ailerons. It is tedious to fabricate the spacers and such for the aileron hinges. I received the installation hardware kit that I ordered from TruTrak for the autopilot servo in the right wing. The mounting bracket replaces one of the original bell crank brackets. Over the course of a couple of days, Tanya installed all of the wiring conduit. Once again, lots of patience is required. With all of that stuff done, I moved on to messing with the pitot tube plumbing. I decided to go ahead and put the aluminum tubing in and put a bulkhead fitting in the root rib. I probably won’t know how well this is going to work out until much later in fuselage construction. You can see the tubing bends that I did in order to be able to disconnect and service the pitot tube without bending or flexing the tubing. Service procedure is: Remove the four screws that hold the pitot mast to the wing skin and the four screws that hold the pitot tube to the mast. Slide the pitot mast into the wing exposing the tubing fitting on the pitot tube. Disconnect the fitting and remove the tube. No movement of the plumbing is required.

And that is it for the wings. I’m sure there will be much more tweaking of flap and aileron hinges and linkage. The bottom wing skins will be installed much later in construction just in case I need access in there for some unforeseen reason.