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Dave's RV-7A Builder's Log
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Date: 7-27-2014
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Number of Hours: 4.50
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Aft skirts
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It was finally time to tackle the aft skirts, something I had been putting off for awhile. The builder's manual, as well as a number of the RV blogs and forums, makes this task seem pretty daunting. A lot of builders resort to making these out of fiberglass in order to get the fit perfect, but I don't particularly like fiberglass, and try to avoid it whenever possible. Aluminum it is.
Possibly the biggest challenge for me was trying to figure out exactly how these skirts interact with the canopy frame and fuselage. Like usual, the only way for me to make it work was to start somewhere, so I cut out the skirts from the sheet and headed for the fuselage to see what to do next. All of the warnings contained the admonition to "make the initial size generous to allow for trimming", or similarly, "don't cut the skirts to final size until you have fit them to the fuselage!". All well and good, but you have to start with something and the skirts are the only component of this size that didn't come precut--they simply had the outlines drawn on a sheet of Alclad. So...is this the final size, or does this allow for trimming??? Grrr...
Turns out I was worrying for nothing as I cut the skirts along the marks and there was plenty to work with. I decided that I would start at the top and work my way down and forward, drilling every other hole initially. I used the strap duplicator that I procured recently and found it pretty easy to do. Lot's of on/off...bend a little, drill a couple of holes...the usual. At the end of the process, I had two skirts that fit very well along the top, respectably in the middle...and need some adjustment along the lower corners. I think I can do that fairly easily as I also need to adjust the side skirts a bit. I'm starting to see an end to the canopy build.
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Using the hole finder to drill right side
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Still needs some shaping to get a better fit
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Right side skirts are almost done
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