Tonight Teresa had a work function so it was shop time extraordinaire for 4 straight hours! I started off where we left off on Monday - by putting RTV on the trailing edge of the stiffeners. The RTV ties the two trailing edge stiffeners together and keeps the vibrations down and hopefully stops any cracks - at least that’s what the build evolution has learned. I have to give a shout-out to my build buddy Rob in Virginia (do all my build buddies live in Virginia?). Rob, is ahead of me on his -8 and so he made a point of telling me to be sure to RTV the elevators before I close them up for good (rivet them). It seems that the Van's instructions leave out the RTV step and they just leave it up to your discretion... anyway, Thanks to Rob – the RTV is secure. I have also been paying it forward to my other RV-8 builders that are slightly behind me...Skyking Bob, in Virginia...and Roger, in San Antonio. :)
The rivet process was fairly straight forward - rivet the skeleton together and then rivet on the skin – pretty much like always - Easy Breezy. I still have 4 rivets left to do (the space limited ones on the top and bottom trailing edge, both sides). I will also be bending the leading edge later in the instructions....see I AM sticking to the plans.
