Still Building, Yet Still Studying

Well it's been a long time since I've posted any progress on here, but we are still movin along on the project. I've just been getting ready for CFI tests and have been devoting my time towards that. I want to have my certificate done and out of the way before the next semester of school starts so for now this is my priority, but Dad and I shall be priming wing skins here within the next week if weather is ideal, lately it's been too windy to lay down any primer. Sorry for the lack of posts, but don't lose faith in us!

Getting Ready to Seal the Tanks

Another productive day, we got a lot done! Continuing on the tanks we finished the installation of the vent lines and the capacitive senders. These weren't too difficult to install except for feeding the wire through the notched snap bushings and tightening the screws on the outboard capacitive senders. We also were able to get the flop tube installed in the left tank. Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture of how we safety wired the flop tube to the elbow AN fitting but it turned out looking great. In the next couple of days we'll hopefully have sealed tanks!

Finished Installing Ribs in Fuel Tanks

Well it's been quite a while since I've posted anything new on here, but good news... all of the ribs are in the fuel tanks! Yes we have continued to work on the project, so don't lose hope in us. We've actually been making some pretty good strides in our progress! I've been busy with other things outside of RV building lately and haven't had the motivation to post lately but it's been too long since I've written!

These past few weeks we've been working away on the fuel tanks. These things are so much work! It's definitely messy work too. To have all of the ribs in is definitely a relief. We've had a few RV builders check out our work so far and they've all said the look like the shouldn't leak. Now all we have to do is finish the vent line and install the capacative fuel senders. These things are already almost complete so we should be sealing the tanks up soon!

To take a little break from the fuel tanks, we fabricated the pitot tube out of the supplied soft aluminum tubing. This thing was a piece of cake, we just double check how it is installed since you have a drill a hole through the main spar.

Continued Sealing Left Tank

Today when we got to the airport Dad and I saw that old Hangar 4 was being torn down. This wasn't a surprise because there's been talk about it going down for about a year now but it's sad to see. It was 1 of 2 remaining historic hangars on the airport. There were originally 5 but they were lost to fires along with some beautiful aircraft. Insurance companys don't like insuring wooden hangars anymore I guess so it had to go.

Well last time at the hangar Dad and I got a couple of ribs riveted in the left tank and today we continued the tedious process. But before we got messy with sealant we were ready for a new little project. We cut some AWG 18 wire to 15" and soldered the BNC connectors to them. These will connect the capacative fuel senders to a fuel transducer inside the fuselage. It was a short project but fun, and good for a change of pace! I haven't soldered for about five years but today Dad said my connections turned out perfectly. We still have to do the piece that interconnects the two plates inside each tank but we still need to obtain a proper wire crimper.

Once our soldering was complete we moved back into sealing some ribs. Not too much to report on these, we did the same process as the past two ribs. We weren't able to get more done but we're still happy with our 2-ribs-a-day progress. They're turning out quite nicely too if I do say so myself.

More Fuel Tank Sealing

Well today Dad and I delved into sealing ribs in the left fuel tank. In our previous work session we got the stiffeners, fuel tank filler, and fuel drain sealed and riveted into the left tank. Today we wanted to catch the right tank up to this stage so we got to work on that. While our rivets soaked in an M.E.K. bath in our Starbucks Expresso bottle we got prepared to rivet. We followed the same procedures that we used on the left tank except for one exception. Instead of using -4 lenght rivets for the drain, we went down to -3.5s. Reason for this is that the -4s were too long and tended to "lay over". We're not going to worry about this though since the drain is a non structural component and it's battered up with a good amount of sealant (which is also a strong adhesive).

Once we caught the right tank up we moved on to riveting the interior ribs for the left tank. This proved to be more difficult than the stiffeners since you're working in a more confined area. We put the skin in our cradle and clecoed in all of the ribs minus the one that we would be working on. This is recommended so the fuel tank stays straight and maintains its shape. We mixed up our sealant and got to smearing! Before we did though we scored the flange (and previously the skin) with emory cloth to provide a prime adhesion surface, once we were done with this we made sure to put a thick layer of sealant along the whole flange of the rib. Once it had a good layer we slid it in and put a cleco in every hole to pull it tight. Our riveting process had us rivet the front half of the bottom of the skin, then the full row of rivets on the top, and then finish the remaing half of bottom rivets. Van's tells you to rivet from front to back in order to eliminate slack.

We were able to finish two ribs today which made us happy! They are definitely a lot of work and we shall get back to work on Thursday.

Fuel Tank Sealing

Well today after work Dad and I thought we'd begin to tackle the job of sealing the fuel tanks. Needless to say we've been dreading this task for a while. Tank sealant isn't exactly the easiest or cleanest stuff to work with. Before we began to mix up some sealant we put the whole left tank together for a dry fit (minus the vent line) to see how everything went together and to make sure if there was enough clearance between the capacative senders and the stiffeners. Everything looked good so, Houston, we have clearance! Once we were satisfied that everything would go together smoothly we began to scuff the rivet lines with medium grit Emory cloth. We did this to promote better adhesion since the rough surface creates more surface area. After this we used Coleman lantern fuel to clean the tanks off. This stuff works pretty good, it takes up all of the oils and leaves no residue. It doesn't smell too bad either like M.E.K. or anything. After we had the skins cleaned up and our tools all sorted and prepared we started to mix the tank sealant. We used our small digital scale and measured the stuff out cup by cup. It's mixed in a 10:1 ratio and it took a couple of attempts to get comfortable with working with this stuff. It's like tar. Extremely thick tar. After mixing for a couple minutes the black hardner was mixed with the white base and we were left with a dark grey substance. We followed the tapes instruction and had the stiffener rivets taped in place (we did four stiffeners at a time) then we smeared the stuff in nice thick layers on each stiffener and set it in place. Then we backriveted them and went back over the shop heads to make sure that we had a good seal. We repeated this a few times and had all of the stiffeners in place and set. After the stiffners we put the fuel drain in place and set its six rivets. This made a mess because sealant oozes out of the holes from both sides and gets all over your squeezer. Have an old rag soaked with laquer thinner to do some quick clean up for your tools and anything else you might need. After the fuel drain we moved to the fuel filler flange and smeared a bunch of sealant on it. We put it in place and put the vent clip on the very front rivet. We got these rivets bucked and decided that's all the time we had for the RV tonight. We cleaned up all the excess sealant with a rag and some laquer thinner and are now just letting it cure! I'm glad we only did one tank tonight. It gave us a chance to get used to working with the sealant and didn't overwhelm us. In a couple of days we'll be back out to do the right side! Also, sorry no pictures tonight. We left the camera at the house.

Fuel Tank Prep

Today before work Dad and I thought we would prepare the fuel tanks for their sealing. So we did just that. I still have a couple of questions on the capacative senders and the vent line but we still got a lot done today. We had already drilled the filler caps to the tanks a few days ago, but that's all we had done to them. We took them off and I got to countersinking them. While I did that Dad taped in some rivets so we could back dimple all of the holes that needed it. Once we had the filler all in place we moved on to the drain sumps. These were pretty straight forward. I just used a square and drew a line through them from front to back and we lined the holes on the drain up with the line. No one will ever see them, but at least they're symetrical! While we were on a roll we wanted to keep going and get as much done as possible. We dimpled the perimeter screw attach holes with our squeezer and they turned out great (Van's says you get better results with a C-frame but I don't know how.) Since I had to work at 3 today, we left enough time for us to watch a Fuel Tank Sealing tape. The thing was shot in the early 90's most likely but hey, it's still relevant and we both learned a lot! After that I had to leave for work and Dad got to work on notching out the vent line snap bushings, he did a nice job on them and that was all we were able to get done today but we're happy!