DATE: 07/27/2024 – TIME: 3:00
Friday became busy with various other things to take care of around the property so nothing got done on the airplane (I was replacing the radio and diagnosing the A/C in the F-250), but Saturday I came back into the workshop and did a bunch of tidying up and then some review of section 5 of the RV-10 manual.
Consequently, I decided that we had not properly dimpled the VS-1001 skin and determined that I needed to reset the DRDT2 and go over the skin again.
Despite being very careful, towards the end of finishing the VS-1013 nose rivet holes, the VS-1001 sheet moved and I accidently punched an additional hole near the original rivet hole. I decided to check with both Vans and my tech counselor John. I had suggested to Vans that I simply insert and additional rivet and the response from Vans was that would be fine. My tech counselor suggested just flattening out the skin and later, when the paint was done, the hole can be filled with feather-lite filler. I think I will go with the flatten and fill route as it seems “tidier”, but I have not made up my mind yet. I think I will follow my tech counselors advice as the hole is not clear of the flange and I don’t want to have to drill another hole in the rib flange.
It is Monday morning (7/29) and I am just catching up on update the web site but will be back in the workshop in about an hour.
Suffice to say, Thursday and Saturday were consumed with getting the final preparations of the rear rudder spar done by machine countersinking the lower hinge bracket holes and then finishing up the front spar and skeleton and dimpling the VS-1001 skin. I was hoping to get everything primed on Saturday but the “extra” rivet hole kinda slowed me down.
Here is the video through to the 25th.
Video of dimpling the vertical stabilizer. At some point I will describe each video a little bit. You will notice that in the latter videos I have attached a small LED that emits an X onto the stabilizer skin. This makes it much easier to place the hole over the dimpler that simply moving the skin around hoping for the best. If I recall correctly the LED was about $12 and while I just taped it in place temporarily, it worked fine.