Ron's RV7 Aircraft Factory


Welcome to my personal blog. This site was created as an informal description of my build progress in the construction of a Van's RV7 aircraft. A place where family/friends/builders/curiosity seekers can follow along. It is not intended to be a detailed description of every step in the building process as that would be much too time consuming. There are plenty of sites that do a great job in that arena, that is not my intention with this site. My intention is for this to be a philisophical/motivational/inspirational account of the emotional ups and downs of the life changing journey...and it will change your life. I hope this will give you an idea, through my eyes, of what its like to make this transformation. A note to other builders, I am not an expert so do not put your safety at risk by attempting anything you see on this site until you have done your own research, or send me an email so we can discuss it. Any deviations from the plans are not approved, nor endorsed by Van's Aircraft or myself. Thanks for visiting.



Thursday, September 23, 2010

End Ribs HOBBS 317.5 hrs

Just a quick post to show my progress from a couple hours last night. Built my flap door and assembled the end ribs. The instructions dont require that you ProSeal the rivets in the access hole mounting ring but it just didnt seem consistent not to. If you say you need to ProSeal all of the rib rivets, why not these? Most builders follow the instructions without problem...I just must be a glutton for punishment?

I will say, now, after two sessions of working with ProSeal. Its not really that bad, the worst part by far is being all gloved up and under a respirator while working. After a couple hours I just want to rip that thing off my face! :) Also, everything is sloooooow going when doing ProSeal...patience is a must.

Its not the ProSeal that concerns me, as the fumes from that arent that bad, its the MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) that I use to clean everything. Although I like the smell of it, (it's a nice clean solvent smell) it is rather toxic and protection needs to be worn. It eats through two pair of gloves in short order, just to give you an idea.




Here are some shots of my 'flap' door. This is recommended by Van's and fabricated by the builder. The purpose of it, from what I can tell is to slow down the flow of fuel from this bay when rolling the aircraft or knife edge flight. As you can see there are two holes, the flapper only covers one so you still get fuel flow but just not as fast. Other builders have questioned the real effectiveness of this, as do I, but Van's knows a lot more about this than I do...so there ya go. On a side note, I wasnt too pleased with my craftmanship on this...could've done a better job. Effective, but not pretty...we always like 'pretty', it always trumps 'ugly'. ;) 


Finally found some 'popsicle' sticks. But they arent 'popsicle' sticks...they are 'Craft' sticks. Who knew? Anyway, found them in the local grocery store in the school supplies/crafts section. I will need these to do my fillets in the corners of the ribs.


Here are a couple shots of my finished end ribs with the tank attach brackets and the anti hang-up brackets installed. These have been ProSealed...including all rivets. Believe it or not, this little task took me two hours! Also below, you can see my strategy on using universal head vs. flathead rivets where the flop tube will install. This was done for nut clearance.

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