Tail Kit Has Begun!

Inventory of Tail Kit 

Well I have successfully completed the inventory of the tail kit.  I luckily had no backordered parts so I can get going without any hiccups.  After about 5 hours of tedious counting and sorting, the small hardware is sorted and boxed away.  The skins and larger pieces are in the middle of the garage, I need to sort through them a bit more when I get a free minute.  I would like to condense the wing and tail kit boxes together if I can to free up more floor space.  I will probably do that after I get back from my visit to Osh Kosh for Airventure 2022!

Chapter 6: The Vertical Stabilizer Begins...

Now that inventory is completed, I pulled out the beginning parts and got started on section 6, the Vertical Stabilizer.  The beginning has you do some cutting on the spar caps and lots of match drilling.  I know the kit is mostly final size drilled, but some things like these spar caps have no holes when they arrive.  So I busted out the old air drill and went to town, I noticed it makes my compressor run non stop, so I am debating trying out my cordless drill for the next part and compare.  I know many have debated the ease of use vs the heavier tool, but I want to try it myself.  The other thing I noticed is my band saw it a little on the "touchy" side.  Any little movement and I honestly think it has some wiggle into the band itself.  I was trying to be as straight and precise, but it was not the prettiest thing I have done.  Cutting a 16" straight line on such a narrow piece is not very easy to do.  It has plenty of edge distance and I got lots of deburring practice and cleaned it up a bit.  

Spar Caps Cut and Cleco'd

Spar Caps Cleco'd To the VS Spar

After that I dove into and started drilling the Spar Caps to the Spar web.  This wasn't terrible but it is lots of drill, cleco, uncleco, deburr, cleco and repeat.  I can see why many of the older builders mentioned the final size holes being a godsend for us newer builds.  I can see how this extra step on a lot of parts to upsize everything can be a pain.  I found the time outside so far relaxing and enjoyable.  I hope to get the flange side done this week before leaving for Osh Kosh, my hope is to get the ribs together and maybe have a skin cleco'd before I leave.  

Airventure 2022 is Finally Here!

So Airventure is finally here.  I have been waiting for a full year since my best friend and I decided we were going to go.  It's been bittersweet to plan and think about everything.  Getting to meet some of the builders I follow online, seeing some of their completed projects, and also seeing lots of products on the market in person is going to be amazing.  One of the big reasons I got into the Van's project was everyone always spoke of the Van's Community as being the best of them out there.  The builders I have interacted with and followed all talk about that and it seems many of them build a lot of those bonds at Airventure.  I hope to meet many builders at the RV Social or Van's banquet.  I also am hoping to get some time to walk through the Homebuild camping/parking and see some finished RV-10's.  I'd love to meet some of the builders as well and pick their brain about things they opted to do or not do on their project.  One of the hardest things is making these decisions, but luckily I have some time for the big ticket items.

My buddy and I will be flying out on Monday and staying in Appleton for the 4 days we are staying.  Unfortunately we both have younger kids, and I don't think either of us could afford a divorce over this trip.  We are both blessed to have such amazing and understanding wives to let us embark on this adventure.  It might not be the big adventure of flying there ourselves, but that will come in time.  We are both in our 30's and we hopefully will have many more years to try and attend in a plane ourselves.

As I mentioned, I hope to see some items like lighting and rudder trim.  I know some builders use the aerosport product, some have a servo based system, and others just put a wedge on.  But I think taking a look at the various builds and picking the brains would be beneficial.  I am hoping to get to a few seminars and also take a trip out to checkout Fisk and maybe the tower, I am a controller after all and seeing that operation would be awesome.  So until I get back to Airventure, thanks for reading and Rock you wings.  Welcome to Airventure 2022!

Got reposted by EAA for my Airventure post! 

Finishing Up The DRDT Table and A Van's Update

 I lost track of progress on the DRDT setup because I wasn't in a rush.  Now that I have the wing kit sitting on my garage floor, I had no reason to stall anymore.  After finishing up inventory, I got to work on getting this table put together.  I utilized the plans within the box and made the table. It went together pretty simply using a few nails and some wood glue to hold everything together.  I finished the frame and will be planning to head out to Lowes for some cheap carpet to line it tomorrow.  Once that is done, I can finish up organizing the tools, receive the primer I ordered, and get started.

In other news, I received notice from Van's that they are preparing to crate my empennage kit.  This was estimated to be ready for shipment in mid May.  This is only a month away, so I am debating waiting for the tail kit and starting that first like normal people would.  This would give me a bit of time to finish organizing and also not be in over my head at first.  However, I do need to organize the kits better if I am going to have room to work on the kits together.  I also decided to cancel my practice kit order.  They are backordered through at least May or June and it seems a bit pointless to now wait two months to do those when I will have two kits sitting in the garage.  So once I finish up the organizing of my tools, I think I am going to just get started.  Let's hope this doesn't backfire on me.

Inventory.... Inventory... and More Inventory

 Well there is a lot of work to do with the kits once they arrive.  The first thing is opening the crate carefully as to not damage anything, remove the packing list, and then start to dig through the packing material.  Van's does an exceptional job of packaging so much stuff into these crates very carefully.  They use lots of tape and paper to secure everything so there is little to no movement of the parts during transit. As long as the crate stays intact (thats the big part), there seems to be a small chance of damage.  A few things I've noted:

• Look out for the shipper to mis-orient the crate.  My one crate arrived on its side despite clear markings for which side up..... and the truck was empty otherwise so there was no reason for it.
• Look for damage on the bottom and sides, the forklifts can do some good damage if they aren't careful.
• Open and unroll all the packing paper, they wrap things up and you don't want to throw away a part by accident.    
• When inventorying the larger parts, you will come across a few items that are not labeled.  These are mostly angle iron, tubes, and some other odd parts.  Set them aside and finish the rest of the inventory.  Once this is done, then compare the remaining few pieces to the inventory list. It will be pretty easy to identify them at this point.  Then take painters tape and label the item with the appropriate part number for later.
  
• Another item I found helpful was to mark out where you put things.  Depending on your workspace, you should have bins or shelves that are labeled.  Then mark on the inventory where these items are for easy location later.
• I had one part which was "warped" but its due to how the part is pressed in the punch at production.  Since I am doing the wing kit first, I have not received the first part of the manual and need to download the details for straightening in section 5.

I spent about 5 hours or so doing the small hardware alone and probably two hours doing the main kit pieces and subkits.  This took up the majority of the inventory time overall separating out the mixed bags and putting everything into storage bins.  I found the Harbor Freight bins really helpful for this.  I think the small bins are probably the most useful but I had purchased a few of the medium ones.  They are a bit big for some items, but I'd rather have the space for later when we get into bigger items like fuselage parts.  As well, my tail kit is expected next month so I will be hopefully combining some of the rivets and bolts into one bin for easy storage.  

I'll update this later with some pictures of the bins and how I marked things for reference.  Until next time.

The Day Has Come....

 Well after a long anticipated wait, the first kit arrived yesterday.  I was a bit disappointed to be starting on the wings before the tail, but I am glad to at least have something to work on.  I am waiting for one or two more parts for my Air Hose system.  I opted to buy the Rapid Air Products RapidAir System.  This was a good setup as it had 100 feet worth of hose and two outlets.  It would allow me to setup a drop down reel, and remote reel by the garage, and keep my compressor in the back of my garage.  I am trying to maximize the distance from the bedrooms to the compressor so I can hopefully work in the evening after my kids are asleep.  Time will tell how that plan will work out, I might be limited to certain tasks only late in the evening.  I am going to do another post about that system and my feelings on the setup for it.

The Truck Has Arrived.