June 9, 2020 The tailwheel spring mount came back and it looks pretty good with a 20% exterior gloss black. I asked them not to paint the two surfaces that mate up to the bulkhead so that I wouldn't have an issue with it being too thick of a layer of paint to fit. Once... Continue Reading →
June 3, 2020 Before we can powder coat the tailwheel spring mount there's two more holes I need to drill. These holes are for 2 "keeper rivets" to help align the spring mount with the aft-most bulkhead. Frustratingly, the plans don't dimension the location of those holes in any useful way. After speaking with Van's,... Continue Reading →
June 2, 2020 Today was spent jumping all around the fuselage and started with finding all the parts to put the control stick together. It took a while to get the bushing in the mount without it binding. I think one tube may have warped a little with the welding, so I took a Dremel... Continue Reading →
June 1, 2020 No photos today because it went a lot like yesterday. The bell crank on this side was smooth from the start, so that was a bonus. That counted as the last of the work that we could do on the wing for now so we moved on to the fuselage. The quick... Continue Reading →
May 31, 2020 Today the right aileron went on the wing for the first time. This required fabricating a spacer and sorting a variety of washers. Once we got it everything bolted into place it moved freely though and was exciting to see. Using the jig included in the kit, I centered up the bell... Continue Reading →
May 29, 2020 Turns out, when I riveted on the flap brace I was looking at the wrong rivet call-out. Today I found the correct rivet callout for the flap brace and I spent the entire day drilling out over 100 rivets. The instructions say "QUICKBUILDER’S NOTE: The W-721 must be attached to the rear... Continue Reading →
May 28, 2020 Today I started the first piece of the flight control system by making the aileron pushrods. These will be the method of driving the ailerons and are critical to be done right. Unfortunately, the plans are wrong and by following them I cut the tubes that run from the fuselage to the... Continue Reading →
May 26 & 27, 2020 Today I finished fabricating the other 3 aileron mount brackets and riveted them to the rear spar of the wings. The brackets weren't hard overall, but some attention to detail was required since all 4 were unique and had different rivet call-outs, including specification to which side the rivet head... Continue Reading →
May 25, 2020 Now that we have a new hole in the fuel tank for the fuel level sender we needed to install nut-plates as well. None of our squeezers fit in that small of a hole, so we ended up modifying a bucking bar to go through the hole and shot the rivets in.... Continue Reading →
May 24, 2020 Since we were putting all the inverted mods into the first bay of the left fuel tank the fuel level sender had to go in the next bay over. To get access we pulled the fuel tank off the wing, which took a lot longer than expected. The instructions read like it's... Continue Reading →
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