Right of the bat, I forgot this handy tip and attach it t the bulkhead. Took me another visit a few weeks later that he refreshed my memory. So I will have to remove this construction again.

Second error is building all the parts of the Flap Actuator bracket and only then attaching it to the bulkhead. You will end up with a twist in the bracket. So another thing that needs to be fixed in the future.

Closing up the Flap Actuator bracket and screwing it to the seat bulkhead.

Here’s where my ancient desktop computer power supply (that I treasured all these years in the attic) comes handy. The Flap Actuator works.

Now I can attach the side skins of the bracket orat least check if it all fits.

Going forward to the fuel lines panels, the fuel selector and the tunnel towards the firewall.

This is the intended position of the fuel selector plate. The part sticking up in an angle is necessary if you build a manual trim, which nobody does. However I’m considering reusing part of the angle to install the fuel selector in an angle and making it part of a center console connecting to the panel. But that’s just a thought right now.

The forward tunnel cover requires a lot of work, because there are many nutplates in there.

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-02-12)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets: 29/0 (2020-02-15)

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Back to building; The Baggage Floor is riveted to the floor ribs with blind rivets (better known by a former brand name: pop rivets).

However the side at the push rod tunnel consists of nutplates being flush riveted together with both the rib and the floor plate. This is a great solution and it provides the means to screw the tunnel cover (and remove it later).

The rest is all blind riveting.

The Seat Floors are fastened similarly. The side is attached together with the nutplates, the rest is again blind riveting.

While I’m working on the Floor plates, my dad is threading the push tubes for the Flaps.

Those are made of Aluminum tube and you have to thread these on both sides yourself, so you can screw the eyebolts of the Flap actuator and the flap itself in there.

Special care is taken when riveting the Baggage Floor, Seat Floor and Seat Bulkhead together. These rivets are hard te insert, as they construction might be ever so slightly different than when drilling.

A bigger problem is the gusset of the RV-7 (tail wheel) that connects the Main Bulkhead to the Forward longerons. This just doesn’t fit and checking with others it turns out to be “typical”. Takes some time and ingenuity to get it fit.

I primed a lot of parts, so we are just trying how stuff should go together in the forward fuselage.

Finishing the Seat Floors with blind riveting them to the seat ribs.

Inserting the seat backs looks great.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets:  72/0 (2020-02-08)

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 114/3 (2020-02-09)

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Turns out I can’t (duh). I screwed up by placing an angle I drilled to the wrong side of the seat back and used it as a drill guide. Nice hole, wrong place. However most of the time I’m a lucky bastard. Just by shear coincidence, Van’s accidentally shipped three seat backs. So the only part I fubarred, is the one that they shipped in excess. What are the odds on that?

Ok, warned by this screw-up, we finished the rest of the seat without a hitch.

The side rails of the seat, lay over the piano hinge at the bottom. This can only work if you file a small ridge of the side rails enough to cover the piano hinge.

Last part is drilling the piano hinges of the seat adjuster.
Moving on to the Flaps or the actuator to be more precise.

I choose the electrical flap actuator, although I think it’s not possible to build a manual flap actuator in an RV. At least I never seen one.

The Flap actuator is housed between the seats and its a motor that drives the Flaps rod. We are fitting the Flap actuator side skins to the back plate. The forward side is pre-drilled.

After match drilling, it is now time to install the motor. Again follow the manual, because although it looks trivial, the correct order in doing stuff delivers a better fit (trust me, because I didn’t).

Next day I installed the actual flap actuation rod. It has three hinge brackets. Especially the middle one, on which I’m working here, is tricky to install.

With all the parts match drilled, again the boring deburring, scuffing and degreasing process prior to priming follows.

Because (to me) there is a considerable overhead in priming, I batch the different parts into a single priming session. In this case I prepare the Seats, Forward Cabin and the Flap actuator.

Almost nearing the end of the Fuselage kit material. in two months my Finish kit will arrive, so I hope I don’t have too much downtime.

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 0/0 (2020-01-29)

Time: 2 Hours, Rivets: 0/0 (2020-02-01)

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 0/0 (2020-02-02)

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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)

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