Matt's RV-7 Project

Here we are about to do the first rib-to-skin riveting of the project, where the center nose rib (HS-707) attaches to the horizontal stabilizer skin. I took the hint from a subsequent step in the instructions and temporarily clecoed HS-708 in place just behind it to help pull the skin down.

And, here's the result. This photo isn't the greatest, but these rivets turned out great. Mary ran the gun and I bucked, which turned out to be a good arrangement. I'll try to get a photo of that next time for all the guys at work who are trying to convince their wives to let them build an RV too. (you know who you are)

Then the forward spar assembly gets clecoed in place in preparation for riveting:

Here's a goofy photo of me trying to get the fiddly little blind rivets into the holes in HS-702/707/708. I think I eventually let Mary and her little hands do this job.

Both middle ribs get riveted to the forward spar:

Suddenly we're starting to have fewer loose parts laying around, and this big assembly is starting to take shape. Cool! Too bad I ran out of time to work on it. Anyway, extreme kudos to Mary for being so awesome and helping shoot rivets. I am a lucky man slash airplane builder.

Here's the front spar after being riveted together:

Here are the HS-405 ribs riveted to the front spar. I couldn't get all the rivets with the squeezer so I had to shoot/buck some. They turned out pretty good.

And now, here's the HS-404 ribs riveted in place as well – these rivets went in with the gun too:

The left side has an extra rivet, as seen here. I hope I don't have to use aileron trim to counteract the weight imbalance. (joke)

Tonight I got the rear horizontal stabilizer spar riveted together. It went pretty well – the pneumatic squeezer is definitely a must-have for this stuff.

Pretty rows of manufactured heads on the exterior side…

…and nice, consistent shop heads on the interior side:

The elevator hinge brakcets get attached, and this sucker is done. The rivet length callouts for middle and outboard hinges seemed a little weird, but I followed the plans anyway. The center hinge bracket gets bolted in place, which means that I got to use the fancy new torque wrench that I sprung for. Any day where you get to use a new tool is a good one.

New left-side horizontal stabilizer spar: drilled, deburred, dimpled, primed, done. Whew. Also touched up the primer on HS-710 and HS-714 while I had on the Darth Vader rig.