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Dave's RV-7A Builder's Log
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Date: 4-11-2007
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Number of Hours: 4.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Aileron attach brackets, flap braces, and gap seal
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In this session, I completed the aileron attach brackets, then finished the flap braces and aileron gap seals. The aileron brackets required careful study of the plans in order to ensure the proper rivet callout was followed. The rivet callout in the plans isn't really intuitive because there are several places that call for AN426 rivets, while the rest call for AN470 rivets, so I double-checked everything before riveting. There were a number of rivets I was able to get with the pneumatic squeezer, but several of them required shooting and bucking. Sometimes, it's actually easier to do that because it takes no time to adjust like the squeezer requires.
After finishing the aileron brackets, I set about attaching the gap seals. This was pretty straight forward as I was able to use the squeezer on all of the 1/8" rivets, and the Tatco on the 5/32" rivets. I kind of like squeezing the smaller rivets with the hand squeezer as I think there is a little more control...also, the rivets smoke when they are compressed...cool!
As I was finishing up the right wing, I noticed that I had failed to rivet the last rivet in the outboard trailing edge. When the wing was still in the stand, I could not access this rivet due to the brace that was holding the wing in place. At the time, I made a mental note to put a rivet in that hole before attaching the outboard aileron bracket...oops. Unfortunately, my memory must not be what it used to be, so there I was, looking at a totally inaccessible hole and very obviously missing a rivet...what to do? Well, a year ago, I would have been thinking about how to disassemble the aileron attach bracket to fix the problem. After two years of fixing mistakes, tonight I simply found a convenient blind rivet and put it in the hole!! I guess that's part of what you learn as you do this...I knew a blind rivet in that hole wasn't going to be a problem, so why spend a bunch of time and energy trying to "fix" it? Of course, I could always check before I rivet something together...
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Flap brace in position
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Detail of flap brace, inboard aileron attach bracket, and aileron gap seal
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Underside of left wing with attachments in place
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