The black (thicker cleco’s fit in the #19 drilled holes. The little angle is for attaching the Flap casing back side.

The Seat floors hold the three piano hinges that allow for adjusting the seat backs to different positions. Unfortunately you can’t back rivet them, because they require ‘normal’ (non-flush) rivets. Hence I need the rivet-gun with the special round mouth.

The piano hinge of the Seat-back brace can be riveted with the squeezer. Notice the lighting holes that reduce the weight.

Now I can start with the actual Seat (back). The seat bottom is just the floor itself.

Most parts can be riveted with the squeezer, however the piano hinge part on the Seat-back and the top angle stiffener require the rivet-gun.

Every time when I work with the squeezer, I get instant joy. Sure it’s an expensive piece of tooling, but it pays of every Euro.

Inserting the piano hinge pin. I decided to add a little polymer kit on both sides to lock the pin up, but still be able to disassemble if necessary.

Wauw, the Seats really look great once installed. I’m very satisfied by how they came out. Now I can start thinking of the Upholstery of the Seats.

The mid channel cover will be placed between the seats and covers the forward part of the elevator pushrod channel. The aft part is covered by the Flap motor casing.

All these parts need to be removable later, to enable access to the pushrod. So all these holes have platenuts and the parts are screwed to the Fuselage.

I have to drill a very small hole in the Flap actuator rod, to enable safety wiring to be installed. Safety wiring prevents rotating parts to come loose.

With the Flap motor and actuator arm connected to the Flap push rod (or whatever that is called), I can now install it in the Fuselage.

Time: 6 Hours, Rivets: 285/0 (2020-02-05)

Video

For most dimples I use the DRDT-2 machine. It can reach most places. Also If you use a Edge Forming tool, use it BEFORE dimpling the edges.

The “edges”, I dimple them with the squeezer. It’s easy and most of the time the DRDT-2 can’t reach it, or you have to place it opposite of the flat bed.

Next day I had some more time to spent, so I worked on the forward Seat bottom details. Here I’m working on the Stick Boot fastener. This is one of those parts, that Van’s could have made easily, but somehow decided to let the builder do it. Which (in my case) results in mediocre results. It’s ok, because it will be under the seat cushion, but why not use the expensive CNC machine in the factory.

It takes a sh@#$t load of time, drilling holes, sawing the parts and using the Scotch Brite wheel to make it smooth.

It took me 2 hours to manufacture this interior decoration. Let’s rivet the nutplates in the Seat bottom to attach the fabricated Stick Boot fastener.

Luckily the stick hole is big enough to squeeze the squeezer through.

The rest of the day I spent making attach angles of the forward fuel line covers. Yet another part that could have been created in the factory.

The forward fuel line covers must be attached to the side sin doubler, but there are no pre-drilled holes, so I have to figure it out myself. Problem is that there is no space to mark the holes. It’s a two person job, so it has to wait until my dad is here.

The housing of the fuel selector (on the other hand) is pre-fabricated and fits great.

Yet another attempt to mark holes. After this one, I decided it’s better to wait than screw something up.

Resh of the day I worked on the Flap actuator construction.

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-01-22)

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 32/0 (2020-01-25)

Time: 2 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-01-26)

Video