Joshua's RV-9A Project

Allison helped rivet the first pass on half the top skin to rib lines.

Dusted off the right wing skeleton and dropped the fuel tank in place.  It clicked right into the dimples and lined up nicely–all the bolts for the Z-brackets lined right up, save for the inboard-most bracket, which needed a little finagling (as it did on the left wing).  Inserted & torqued all the spar-tank bolts, then all the screws.  Used a new screwdriver bit, and only managed to mangle two screw heads…gotta get one of those “grippy” bits with the tiny serrations on the tip, maybe those hold on better.

Followed up by clecoing on the top skins, interpolated with plenty of wing-twist measurement checking.  All’s good…ready to rivet!

Primed the top skins, wing walk doubler, and J-channels for the right wing, along with the retainer brackets for the landing light lenses.  Discovered that small bugs are attracted to the large, freshly primed skin panels as the light dims in the late evening–probably because they’re rather white.

Summer is the time for working on projects…and this summer, that’s meant remodeling the bathroom more than building an airplane.  I’ve spent the last three weeks on that project, with at least a week to go, taking into account the fact that I need to go to “real” work at least occasionally…  A complete strip-to-the-studs and buildout of our small bathroom, to follow on the (unplanned) porch and patio projects from last summer.

Not to say there’s been no work on the plane…I set Allison to work deburring and dimpling wing skins when she complained of being too bored.  Several nights ago, I reconfigured the shop for riveting the right wing, plumbed and leveled the skeleton.  Tonight, I did primer prep on the top skins and J-channels for the right wing; hoping to get a chance to prime them tomorrow after work.  I’m guessing we’ve found 6 hours or so in the last month.

Time flies, even if I don’t; school will be starting again before we know it.