Damazio family's RV-10 project

Bottom wing skin cracks

After sanding and priming the lap joint area on the inboard skin (which was a bit tricky given the skin was already riveted in place), I came back the next day to find this:

OMG a crack! :'(

After a few moments of utter panic as I saw a crack propagating, I contacted Van's, which assured me that the area is not structurally significant, and suggested two options:

Filling the cracks with JBWeld: I was really surprised by this, as I thought the crack would continue to propagate anyway, but they swear it won't.
Cutting off the corner: they say this should be fine, though less aesthetically pleasing due to the reduced thickness

I was way more comfortable with the second option, so I did that - it indeed doesn't look pretty, and I may still need a small doubler around that rivet hole to adjust the thickness, but I'm comfortable that the skin will stay in one piece now:

Cracked corner removed

As if that weren't enough, as I was dimpling the pitot mount screw holes on the other skin, some cracks showed up on the #8 dimples:

Cracks on the pitot mount screw hole dimples

so I had to file those down, which deforms the holes (but should be ok for screws):

Filed pitot mount screw holes

On the outside, it doesn't look perfect, but should not be even remotely visible:

Pitot mast holes on the bottom wing skin

In the meantime we also primed the other parts (such as the left bottom wing skin), and ultimately clecoed them in place and removed the blue pastic around the rivets, so they're ready to rivet and finally be done with the wings!

I'll make a separate post about the wing wiring and electrical planning.

Time lapse:

Total bottom wing skin rivets: 433
Total bottom wing skin time: 67.3h

Fuselage kit arrival

The fuselage kit is here!!

We opened up a lot of space in the garage, thinking that the crates would be huge:

Turns out, the crate is actually much smaller than that of the QB wing:

First glance

Uncrated fuselage kit

Now on to inventorying while I finish riveting the bottom wing skins.

Unboxing time lapse:

Flaps

The only step to be done on the flaps section is attaching them. This starts by "press-fitting" (read: hammering in) some brass bushings:

Brass bushings in flap attachment

The attachment hardware goes through the bushings:

Flap attachment hardware

and the control hardware needs to be installed (but the actual control hookup only happens after the wings are attached to the fuselage):

Flap control attachment

Time lapse:

Total flaps rivets: 0!
Total flaps time: 0.7h

Bottom wing skin priming and lap joint

I've been very slowly making progress on the bottom wing skins - slowly mostly because of weather not allowing me to prime parts repeatedly for the past few months (below 59˚F which is the minimum for Akzo).

When I got a chance, I primsed many of the smaller parts that were lying around, like the inspection covers and the pitot tube attachment parts:

Primed pitot mount and access cover parts

I riveted the L-shaped bracket for the pitot tube:

Pitot mount bracket

I then got to the dreaded lap joint, which requires tapering the ends of the skins so they overlap properly. I started by testing on a scrap piece, and got OK results with the Dremel:

Simulated lap joint on a scratch piece

I then moved to the real outboard skin for the right wing:

Section of the outboard wing skin which overlaps with the inboard skin

Being much larger, it soon became clear that the Dremel would not suffice, so I got a random orbital sander, which did the job (not without a few hours of effort to get that tip to half the thickness and a smooth ramp in):

Sanding the edge of the outboard wing skin for the lap joint

Wing skin lap joint thickness

Wife primed that skin and I dimpled it:

Right bottom outboard wing skin, primed

Being a quickbuild kit, the inboard skin was already riveted on, so that was more difficult to sand and prime:

Overlapping inboard skin area which overlaps with the outboard skin

After a few hours of sanding (switching between the Dremel, the orbital sander and a sanding block), the end result is quite decent, and the lap joint looks flush:

Lap joint after sanding

Next is priming the inboard skin strip that got sanded, and repeating it all for the left wing, then finally riveting those skins in place. This week's weather promises some significantly warm weather, so that should happen soon :)

Time lapse:

Total bottom wing skin rivets: 433
Total bottom wing skin time: 54.1h

Aileron static wicks

Still following the Dayton-Granger recommended static wick placement for the RV-10, I measured and realized that I can indeed fit two wicks on the wingtips (though I'll likely want to use Clickbond nutplates to make that easier to attach). IThe third wing wick goes on the ailerons, and since the QB ailerons come fully built, I used #8 rivnuts:

Installing aileron rivnuts

The end result looks clean (which is a surprise given it was my first time installing rivnuts):

Rivnuts installed on the aileron

Static wick installed on the aileron

From my test on a piece of scrap before, I knew this would create a gap:

Rivet static wick installation test on scrap piece

I'll later either fill the gap with conductive cement or a strip of metal to ensure conductivity.

Time lapse:

Total aileron rivets (including the rivnuts): 4
Total aileron time: 2.1h

Tailcone mod riveting

We came back to the tailcone for a few unfinished items - notably, we riveted the NACA vents and the static ports:

Riveted tailcone NACA vent

Riveted static port

We then ran the static port tubing:

Static port tubing

It still needs attaching to the top brackets, which should be quick.

Time lapse:

Total tailcone rivets: 1858
Total tailcone time: 223h

Aileron trim attachment and wiring

Attaching the aileron trim servo to the pushrod is pretty simple, and involves marking the neutral position, then attaching a bracket 6 inches to each side:

Aileron trim attachment points in right torque-tube-to-bellcrank pushrod

The servos and pushrods will then be connected by springs.

For securing the servo wires, I used a Panduit RAMH-S6-D attached through the same screw as the servo:

Aileron trim servo connector attachment

This will keep the wires away from the moving side of the servo and can hold a connector in place. For the connector, I picked a mini AMP CPC 5-pin (1445820-1, 1445829-3, 1445856-1) which has pins for the 26-gauge servo wires (770985-1, 770986-1). Those pins are 26-22 AWG, so I can just 22 on the other end and not have to deal with tiny wires.

Mini CPC for aileron trim servo

Crimped all the pins (it was slightly annoying, since the pin edges do NOT sit flush on the wire end of the crimper when the pin is this small), slipped on braided sleeving and some heat-shrink (just in case):

Aileron trim servo pins crimped

Inserted the pins into the receptacle and closed it up:

Cable coming out of aileron trim servo, with connector

Shell size 11 is small, but not that small (unfortunately shell size 8 only takes up to 4 pins, and I needed 5).

Full connector/receptacle pair atached to aileron trim mount

(and, for my own record, the pinout I used was 1,2-power; 3-green, 4-blue, 5-orange)

With this, the only thing left on the aileron trim is actually installing it in place and wiring it to the AP servo, which will come much later.

Time lapse:

Total aileron trim rivets: 16
Total aileron trim time: 8.1h

Aileron actuation complete

When I installed the ailerons in place, it became apparent that they were not aligned properly - the inboard end of both ailerons was catching on the bracket's rivets:

After consulting with Van's, this was solved by shifting it outboard a bit with another washer and shortening the spacer:

I then proceeded to installing the torque tubes and pushrods. I decided to do this before attaching the bottom outboard skin to make adjustments easier:

Torque tubes and pushrods attached

Template holding bellcrank in neutral position

Aileron near neutral position

The last part - adjusting the length of the bellcrank-to-aileron pushrods - required installing the flaps temporarily:

Flaps installed for adjusting the aileron actuation

then using them as a reference for the ailerons:

Aileron and flaps well aligned

Adjusting the bellcrank-to-aileron pushrods

I removed the ailerons, flaps and pushrods again after adjusting the pushrod lengths, but the only step left is to reinstall them after the bottom skin is riveted.

Time lapse:

Total aileron actuation rivets: 40
Total aileron actuation time: 22.1h

Fuel tank adjustment

In the last episode about the fuel tanks, we attached them in a hurry before moving, and some of the skin edges were still overlapping with the adjacent parts. I finally got around to removing the tanks, filing them down and reattaching. I also took the opportunity to torque their bolts properly.

Torque seal on the fuel tank bolts

This (finally, really) concludes the work on the tanks.

And of course, I couldn't have done it without my wife's help and support:

zzzzZZZZZzzzz

Time lapse:

Total fuel tanks rivets: 30
Total fuel tanks time: 21.9h

Testing Aveo Ziptip wingtip lights

I had received my Aveo Ziptips some time ago but never got around to testing the lights - I finally got a proper power supply and did it.

The Ziptip light assembly receives a standard TE CPC, and comes with the connector and some (test?) leads:

A peek inside the ziptip light assembly

Standard CPC with test leads

Since they reuse wire colors, I had to identify and label the different pins:

Labeled test leads

then temporarily splice the trailing-edge light wires:

Connected trailing-edge light wires

I didn't bother unwrapping the wingtips (not until I'm ready to work on them), so I was getting the lights through multiple layers of bubble wrap plus tape that covers the lenses, yet they were bright!