Spoiler alert: I didn’t test thoroughly enough. Sure the wiring is all ok, but it turns out the ECU cannot communicate with the EFIS, Something I could have detected by just looking at a indicator led and if I had read the ‘fricking’ manual. More on this frustration in another post.

I have drawn the schematics myself, so what we do is check all the connections source to sink and mark them of on the schematic.

Besides the top skin, I also need to install the bar that connects the windscreen to the rib in the forward fuselage. This is hard, because it has to be done in conjunction to each other.

With all the wiring checked (we had to make a few adjustments, but nothing severe), we can now fasten the Top Skin with cleco’s. As you can see there are two access panels in the skin, so we can still reach the power bars, the ECU and the RDAC’s.

Ok, I forgot to paint the bottom side of the skin that is part of the panel in the cockpit. It was primed just like all the other (non-visible) parts, but once I saw the tqp skin in its place, it became apparent that it needs to be black. Since I already tear down my paint booth, I had to ‘wing it’ with a spray can.

Making sure the bar fits, I thought I’ll install that one first, but that doesn’t work since it needs to be inserted in the skin. But if it is in the skin how can I reach the nuts.

Right, we can gently bend the skin without really bending it to fasten the nuts and bolts.

Yes sounds really easy, but this took a considerable time. If you over-stress the Aluminum skin you can damage it permanently.

I figured out that I could indeed insert it later and crawl in the cockpit to fasten the bar (sigh). Ok with that established, let’s cleco it all together.

Some holes didn’t align nicely, so I decided to enlarge a few holes from #40 to #30 and use a bigger rivet. The Forward Top Skin fits very tight (almost to tight if you ask me).

The ‘new’ bigger holes also need to be dimpled. Because I don’t want to remove the (very tight) skin again, I decided to use the pneumatic squeezer to dimple the skin and the Firewall.

Now we can start riveting from the top middle to both sides.

Now it’s time to insert the bar, before riveting the rest of the skin.

Except for the row in the longeron, you can rivet everything by (again) gently bending the skin, so the hand with bucking bar can reach the rivet. The bottom row of rivets that are attached to the longeron can only be done by crawling in the forward fuselage. It resulted in a really bad night’s sleep, because my back was sore of laying on the main spar.

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets:  0/0  (2021-01-13)

Time: 7 Hours, Rivets: 74/0  (2021-01-16)

Time: 8 Hours, Rivets:  0/0  (2021-01-20)

Time: 8 Hours, Rivets: 79/0  (2021-01-24)

Time: 6 Hours, Rivets:  0/0  (2021-01-27)

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets:  0/0  (2021-01-29)

Time: 7 Hours, Rivets: 98/0  (2021-01-31)

Time: 6 Hours, Rivets: 40/0  (2021-02-03)

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I clecoed the skin to the bulkheads and stringers and just like the previous aft top skin, we start at one side to enable working from the other side.

This strategy worked fine for the previous most aft top skin, but turned out useless for this one.
The goal of this strategy is preventing having to crouch into the tail cone. However with this second top skin it’s impossible to reach the rivets and in the end you have to crawl in anyway.

Turned out I also made a mistake riveting the attach angle to the top rib and the aft bulkhead. The manual clearly stated to keep it clecoed, but just before placing the skin I thought it was due time to rivet it.
Turns out it wasn’t!

After riveting the skin to the left longeron, we can safely route the static air forward.

Continuing riveting the aft top skin to the bulkheads.

The forward bulkhead just fits. It requires a little fluting.

And there I found the reason why I should have had the angle clecoed. There is no way we can reach the rivet of the skin with the bucking bar. Only solution is to crawl in, drill out the rivet and reset it. That takes at least 15 minutes.

Oh well it turns out I had to crawl in anyway to rivet the right longeron. So we continued and did both in one swoop.

And this is why you don’t want to crawl into a tail cone. It’s really small, very uncomfortable and it’s easy to break stuff.

Last few rivets in the right longeron and then I can crawl out again.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets:  46/0 (2020-03-07)

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 241/3 (2020-03-08)

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It will be much harder to do this once the skin is in place. However I don’t route the tube forward yet, as it makes it really hard to rivet the skin to the longerons.
I’m getting better and better in thinking activities through.

Another task I want to finish before riveting the top skin, is riveting the Aft Deck, which keeps the alignment of the longerons. I’ve postponed this considerably, because I wanted to pull the tube for the electrical wiring to the tail.

With the Aft Deck and Static Air in place, we can now cleco the Aft Top Skin to the Fuselage. Starting from left to right.

The reason why I started on the left side is that we need to route the Static Air Tube on the left side. So this way we still have easy access.

With the left side riveted (to the longeron, we can now attach the harness cable bracket and the Static Air tubing.

We placed the connector of the Static Air higher than the left side port. This way if moist comes in, it will flow out of the port and not towards the instruments.

Now we can rivet the remaining holes and we can still reach in for the J-Channels. The last part is the right longeron rivets. Those can only be done from the other side.

With the first top skin riveted, we can also install the right harness cable bracket and torque it.

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 231/0 (2020-02-16)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  39/2 (2020-02-17)

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The two top Stringers cannot be clecoed to the bulkhead, because it would prevent attaching the Top Skin itself. So according to the manual you have to tape it to the bulkhead.

Now I can fit the most aft Top Skin.

It’s not easy to cleco it, because it’s a tight fit and the order in which you fasten the cleco’s determines how easy it is.

Now that the aft most Top Skin is attached, the distance between the two bulkheads is set. However you can’t determine the location of the stringer. Since I didn’t trust my tape, I measured the distance between the rivet lines on the forward (aft) Top Skin and marked it on the stringer to “center” it between the bulkheads.

Adding the 709 bulkhead to the aft side. It’s easy to insert and remove it.

The forward (aft) Top Skin didn’t fit nicely, I had to apply too much tension to insert the cleco’s. So although the vinyl is thin, I determined to remove the inside vinyl on both the Top Skin as well as the overlapped outside vinyl.

This worked better, although it’s still a very tight fit. I needed to insert some cleco’s on the inside, because I was unable to insert them from the outside. Besides the tight fit, the fact the holes are also under-sized makes it a hard combination.

Another detail is clecoing the angle which attaches the rib / channel between the bulkheads. Apparently it’s impossible to (for Van’s) to pre-manufacture the channel, however I don’t see why.

Very slowly this starts too look like an aircraft.

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 34/0 (2019-12-31)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-01-02)

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There are about 4 different lengths of flush rivets used, depending on the number and thickness of the Aluminum sheets. So we decided to rivet per length and skip those (by inserting cleco’s) in the holes that require longer rivets.

After about two hours we got the top skin attached to the main spar and ribs. This makes the wing quite rigid. We take it from the wing stand and lay it on the table for attaching the aileron hinges and fairing and flap brace.

The outboard aileron hinge is pretty straight forward.

On the inboard aileron hinge, there is the Service Bulletin to place doublers on the inside of the rear spar. Luckily our bottom skin is still off. I can imagine the frustration of receiving the Service Bulletin after you attached also the bottom skin.

No we can finish the bottom row of the skin with the squeezer, OH NO!! With the right wing we did this routine for the first time and I checked every step twice. Now I thought I could do it fast. But you cannot reach the rear spar once the aileron fairing is attached.

I hesitated to drill out all the rivets of the aileron fairing, but that are so many of them, I would probably screw that up and make it worse (hey after almost half a century even I start to recognize minor attitude issues). The space between the fairing and the top skin is too small for the yoke of he squeezer. Even the 4″ flat mouth does NOT fit, however my bucking bar does fit between these two pieces of Aluminum.

There goes efficiency of preserving work for the squeezer. Oh well, at least I can fix it without a huge amount of extra work and frustration or fubarring my wing.
The flap brace is NOT attached to the top skin, so the problem only exists at the outboard side of the aileron.

I’ve just received the “crating date” of the Fuselage kit I ordered. Van’s doesn’t report a shipping date, but a crating date (shipping is probably a few days later). My fuselage will be crated February 18th 2019. So with shipping and handling, it will probably take until mid March before I receive it. I’m not sure if I have enough work, since I only need to do the Aileron and Flaps and the bottom skin.
Maybe I can do the composite work on the Empennage and Wings, which I deferred. However specifically for the Wings the manual states that you should do the wing tips later after finishing the Fuselage, Engine and Finish kit, because they can be damaged easily.
We’ll see, but I’m not going to sit idle in my workshop twiddling my thumbs.

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 559/1

Video

We are deciding where to start with riveting. The leading edge and the tank is installed. According to the manual you start with the outboard skin in the middle going inward and outward interleaved.

Since you have to use rivets of different lengths, due to different thicknesses of material. I prepared the skin in such a way that cleco’s are in the holes that required different lengths to prevent error. Also we found just in time that the most inboard rib does leave some holes un-riveted for fairing assembly. So we put the cleco’s in those holes too.

The process is simple, every rivet is hammered with the rivet gun by my dad on the outside and bucked by me on the inside (times 500).

Careful inspection is required, because after closing the wing it is impossible to reset rivets.

We double checked the lengths of the push-rods of both wings. I learned that before I start drilling or sawing, I’ll explain what I’m about to do to either my dad or my wife and this way I tend to defend may actions, which will bring flaws into my reasoning to the front.

Ok, I must admit we are just admiring the result here. Now it really looks like an airplane part and it feels super flush. No protrusions or rivet seam.

I’m really amazed by the precision of Van’s kits. Being a first time builder (and a software guy), I didn’t expect this result. Although I tend to be anal in getting this right, I know my motor-skills are not sufficient to get these results. So kudo’s for the CNC-machines of Van’s Aircraft and there manuals.

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 558/0

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