RivetBangers.com

Man, I hate to see RB w/o posts for over 12 hours! I need something to distract me from yardwork, albeit, yardwork needs to get done before I can work on the RV.

Anyways, I just finished up the fuselage, sans wing and tail mounting and of course some painting that needs to be done. Officially yesterday I started on the tip up canopy. If it's still cold out when the time comes to cut the canopy, I will mate the wings and do other stuff FWF while I wait for the temps to get "plexiglas friendly".

Other exciting news from the RV front is since I have the subpanel done, I can finally figure out how the panel will look knowing what interference items I have to deal with. Here is more or less the final version:



Full IFR with redundant everything. I went with a Dynon/AFS combo because of 1) cost savings and 2) redundancy in hardware and software. I don't know if I am going to put an ASI in, it is there more or less as a place holder for an extra 2" hole.

What's everyone else doing? (Besides Chad.....we all know by now he is deciding how to match the bottom of a Van's cowl with the top of a Sam James cowl to fit his VW 1200cc engine ! )

What have I been doing?!?! Home improvements!!! AAARRRGGGHHH! Not touched my '8 in weeks!

bullojm1 wrote:What's everyone else doing? (Besides Chad.....we all know by now he is deciding how to match the bottom of a Van's cowl with the top of a Sam James cowl to fit his VW 1200cc engine ! )

HA! I hung the engine this morning! Actaully, with that engine, I don't even need a cowl...

For real though...this morning I helped Carl move his wings to storage...he'll chime in (hopefully with a pic or two).

I'm working living room trim this afternoon...

I built a platform ot set the fuselage on this AM and have a friend coming over tomorrow that I will get to help move it from the saw horses to the platform.

Working on some doublers for the antennas similar to the ones CJ did this afternoon.

I also called and harassed CJ and Chad bot h for a little while.

Oh yeah, cleaned on the shop and will do more of that this afternoon also. Seems like it gets more cluttered if I'm not working out there regular than if I am.

selling my k-5 blazer, but in order to that i have to put in valve seals. should have done that ages ago. god only knows how many little plastic lines i will break in the process and how many trips to the store 12 miles away i'll have to make. while my partially wired panel just looks on thinking it has been traded for a 4x4. maybe i'll net enough money from this to have someone else paint my plane. its the little black and red dot in the yard.

I went to the hangar to try to secure my carpet better. Too darned cold in there. The adhesives I plan to use need to have the temps at least 50F.

Guess insulating my hangar and possibly a new door is my next big project....

I just cut my longerons

Now for the bending part.... I think I'm gonna try the Orndorff "both at once" method... wonder if it will work?

Dave-

The longerons aren't that bad at all. I did mine separately and they turned out GREAT. The nice thing about doing them separately is once you struggle with the first one, the second one is EASY.

All it takes is a padded vice, rubber mallet, adjustable wrench (to take the twist out or put it in) and A LOT OF PATIENCE!

Good Luck!

Getting ready to go to Disney tomorrow.

Took a load to the dump.

Flew the plane for 1.5

Picked up insulation for my newly converted heated spray booth.

Preparing to install insulation when Im done posting this.

Will move onto finishing the fab work on the right aileron.

I cut trees and burned brush all day...(Honey-do weekend). Going to see "The Bucket List" at 7:00. As far as the plane goes, wiring my elevator trim and fussing with the canopy frame.

Went the the airport this morning brite and early and rented a spam can, did several TO&L's to maintain currency.

Later helped my friend Tim finish off the final touches on his RV6A, we calibrated his fuel tanks 2gal at a time.

Finally around 3:30, he built up enough courage after some high speed taxi test to pour on the coal and break the bonds of the earth for the first time.

He flew for about 30 minutes on the first hop. No problems whatsoever!

Great Job Tim if you are reading this!

bullojm1 wrote:What's everyone else doing? (Besides Chad.....we all know by now he is deciding how to match the bottom of a Van's cowl with the top of a Sam James cowl to fit his VW 1200cc engine ! )

I practiced formation take-offs and four ship formations in the early morning; rode along with Falcon Flight while they practiced their airshow routine in late morning; practiced formation take-offs and two ship formations in the early afternoon; and flew some performance runs and did my VOR check in the late afternoon/early evening. Other than that, I pretty much just sat around all day.

By the way Mike, the panel is going to look nice.

Pat

Whoah HEAH!

SUMMONABEETCH!

Everyone has been busy today!

Willie, plant some trees WOULD YA?

I ahhhh, went to the health club for a workout and cleaned up the shop a bit. I noodled over my latest "enhancements" and then had a few at the hangar with some fellow RV guys.

Gonna fly down to the airpark on the cape with Antony tomorrow and meet up with some MORE RV guys to noodle over MORE RV stuff.

THEN... I am gonna go to a party and watch everyone else watch the Pats do a perfect season thing. Me? I will be drinking Captain Morgan's and eating too much.

CJ

captain_john wrote: Willie, plant some trees WOULD YA?


CJ

jonh, john, john,
you gotta work with me here...how am i supposed to build a plane when other builders are raggin me about planting trees. your killin my "when im done with the plane" excuse....not really that one died a while back. lets just say that gets an imediate from her when i start a sentence with "when i get " no trees allows me to spend less time cutting the grass which now takes 3 hrs. with a 6 foot mower.
i really should be in my hangar now but i think i may paint it at home then take it to the hangar.
say, does anybody share a T hangar with a cessna by any chance?? theres one in my hangar and i dont see there being enough room for two id rather share but i may need to find him another hangar.

Slept till around noonish, showered, and walked dow the street from my hotel for a breakfast of pizza and two Corona beers. Back to hotel and snoozed several hours until time to drive to work. We launched one aircraft out about 7PM, towed another one into the hanger shortly after. I launched out another one at 10PM. We recovered another one around 11:30PM and re-spotted it on a different spot on the flight line. Last recovery should be around 3AM, so just killing time until it returns and time to go home. Played numerous games of chess and freecell on my laptop, and read about 100 pages on a book I have been reading.

Arrived by airline in Palm Springs this afternoon, just got out of the pool. Hope ya'll are havin fun. I'll get home wedensday and start wiring the panel on Thursday.

weezbad wrote:

captain_john wrote: Willie, plant some trees WOULD YA?


CJ

john, john, john,
You gotta work with me here... How am I supposed to build a plane when other builders are raggin' on me about planting trees? You're killin' my "when I'm done with the plane" excuse.... Not really that one died a while back. Let's just say that gets an immediate from her when I start a sentence with "when i get..." No trees allows me to spend less time cutting the grass which now takes 3 hrs. with a 6 foot mower!
I really should be in my hangar now; but I think I may paint it at home then take it to the hangar.
Say, does anybody share a T-hangar with a Cessna by any chance?? There's one in my hangar and I don't see there being enough room for two. I'd rather share but I may need to find him another hangar.

Hahahaha, ya still need some trees. They are low maintenance.

Here is a pic of my house:



The hammock on the hill is a nice place to sit in the summertime.



I am going to paint my plane myself too. My current plans are to do it at my school in Auto Collision's paint booth.

I am willing to bet you could probably fit in a hangar with a Cessna. Depending on the size of the hangar, of course.

CJ

Wow CJ, you don't have as much snow as we do.

john,
very nice,looks like an established neighborhood. mine was in it infancy when i started building..once i get started i cant stop. its my best and worst attribute. well maybe my foul mouth is the worst

man what id give to have a hammock in the shade....hmmm i'll need those trees soon. more than that i'll need some spare time to lay in it.

you know thats gonna be the best part of being finished with this rv. and i cant wait for it to be here. now dont get me wrong, i know i'll always tinker with it, but the every minute of my spare time thing is killin me.

juuuust (heavy breathing) ooooone (heavy breathing) mooooore (heavy breathing) riiiivet (ahhhhhhhhhhhh)

I pressure washed some harnesses that I make and maintain for an amusement park ride- in the snow. These are my hanywork:


And speaking of snow- my neighbors are woring on either living in an igloo, or opening up they own ski slope This picture was taken a couple of nights ago out of the door of my shop: