Scott & Tanya Card RV9A build log (N4822C)

After Tanya and I got back from a great lunch out (reward for priming this morning), we got back to it and started painting. The rattle cans of paint do best when they are sprayed in an upright orientation. So, I setup my spray trays (frame covered with chicken wire) vertically on my spray tables in the back yard. Most of the parts that we were painting have holes in them for screws that lend themselves to sticking a couple clecos in them and then you can just hang the part on the cleco in the chicken wire. That worked out great.
It was way too hot (100+ degrees) and windy outside to be spraying paint but I long ago came to peace with just shooting for an adequate finish on the interior paint. After we finished all of the parts, I got to work on painting the fuselage interior. That only took about 45 minutes. The aircraft factory is closed now for the day. I’m wiped and so is Tanya. This all would have taken me two or three days if I didn’t have her help.

 

  

  

  

  

 

Ugh. It took Tanya and I two hours this morning to get all the parts and cabin primed. It is HOT out. Tanya kept the trays of parts coming and going full time. Now it is time to hide in the air-conditioning and prep for paint. The paint that I’m shooting is out of a rattle can (rustoleum grey from home depot) so we don’t have to do everything at once.
Sorry, no action shots of me trying to keep from dripping sweat on the fuselage while spraying with the full face forced air breathing apparatus (hobbyair).

 

  

  

  

 

I took Friday off of real work and did final fuselage primer prep. We are going to do a big primer session tomorrow morning to include the fuselage interior and all of the remaining interior parts. We’ll see if I have enough primer and energy. I spent most of the afternoon, and Tanya helped in the evening, cleaning parts. They’re scattered all over the house, ready for primer. If things go well, I’ll also try to shoot some paint in the evening. It is 100 degrees outside which acts like a drying oven so parts are ready quick. I’m looking forward to getting all this stuff painted so I can proceed with final assembly. It will be cool to see stuff go together for the last time.

 

  

  

  

 

I riveted on the spar caps on this evening and pulled the side map lights back out. The spar caps must be structural with that many rivets in them.

 

  

 

I did a bit of work on mounting LED map lights on both sides of the cabin deck rails. I’m also mounting some dimmer switches (from Perihelion design) right in front of each of them. The dimmer knobs are coming from Digikey 226-4084-ND. Much care was taken before drilling these holes as they represent a pretty big commitment. I did a little bending and modifying of the dimmer heat sinks in order to be able to fit them as far aft as possible.

I have also decided (drilled the holes) to mount a pair of swivel eyeball cockpit lights overhead just behind the rear canopy frame. I think I’m going to have one white and one red both on a single dimmer with a selector switch to choose one or the other. (update: I decided to just install two dimmers, one for each light.) Oh, yeah, and remember that I also installed an electroluminescent strip on the glare-shield for primary panel lighting :). Needless to say, I’m not going to be short on light. This is the best part of building your own plane. You get to “fix” all of the little frustrations that you’ve had in the past with production aircraft, just to suit your individual fancy. I used to fly a lot at night and was always looking for more light. Some would suggest that this is too much interior light. I don’t care, I don’t have to, or intend, to turn it all on at the same time. I’ve even threatened to mount a light bar on this thing with some off road lights for taxi operations :).