Better late.....................

It's overtime for an update. Friends, no posting does not mean no action. I have excuses, but will keep those to myself. this post will update a few (part) days of building. It chronicles  a fair part of the assembly of the tailcone. The final preparatory part of the rear bulkhead assembly was to attach the bushing and hinge brackets called out in this section of the plans

This is followed by test fitting the rear bulkhead to the stabilator assembly incorporating selection of the appropriate washers to ensuire a good fit. This was completed with only a minor wrestle of the tiny washers into place, assisted  by the judicious application of super glue to hold said washers where they should be.

The preparatory work now complete, attention now turns to the assembly of the tailcone. It could just be that this will herald the first identification of the project as something approaching the look of an aircraft part. We shall see. This is the laying out of the first of the skins (bottom - the  assembly is upside down at this point).
You can see here the three tailcone ribs attached to the bottom skins with the left bottom skin clecoed in place.

Here with the bottom and left and right bottom skins riveted in place.

Paul turned up at this point and helped with the clecoing and riveting of the side skins. The whole assembly was turned the right way up and some strings run to assist the later installation of the control cables, very difficult once the tailcone is closed up, unless the strings are available to pull them through.

Here the novice master builder is running and affixing wires that control the trim mechanism
 

As shown here the wire protrudes the required distance from the rear bulkhead assembly (now clecoed in place), later to be connected to the motorised trim mechanism

 
I thought this looked like an outstandingly good (and simple) effort. Later that evening I was browsing the Vans forum and discovered that other builders have provided advice that there is a right and wrong way to install this wire, the connector pins need to be at the front end. Strangely the otherwise comprehensive building plans are silent on this point. With a 50/50 chance of stuffing this up, I repaired to the shed and cautiously removed the tape evident on the end of the wires shown above. Sure enough - pins! I'm going to need to remove a number of cable ties and reverse the wire. Fortunately I have yet to put the top skins in place so I have access to do this. No drama.

Blissfully ignorant of this at the time, Paul and I  pressed ahead with the clecoing and riveting. It was great to have help with this, it's amazing how quickly it goes with two on the job. 

So this is the current  state of play. The affixing of the top skin, a stiffener and the fixing plate as shown below will complete the tailcone section of the build. 



I think it's progressing well given the competing demands for construction time and given that construction only  began on May 26th. This is fun - and very satisfying.

Short But Sweet

Just a short session tonight after the paying job.

The job at hand is to rivet numerous places in the rear bulkhead assembly. I counted them, there are exactly 88 of the little ******s. For me the most challenging part of the build so far has been to set solid rivets properly. I have become reasonably adept an drilling out those that are not up to standard. So much so in fact that as I think I have mentioned, I am fearful of running out of rivets.

Given this I confess that I approached squeezing these 88 with due respect (read fear and trepidation). It is complicated by there being several different rivet types and getting them in the right places requires some concentration. Imagine my surprise when the task was completed without a single oops. Its too good to be true really and my riveting confidence is greatly enhanced. I must say I did take extra care. Now I'm no engineer but it is evident that a good part of the back end of the airframe attaches to this bulkhead. This probably explains why it's very solid and has lots of rivets. This is quite encouraging really for those of us brave enough to go aloft in this ship at some point in the future. Here it is.

 The next job is to attach the hinge brackets and bearings to this assembly, some test fitting and then on to the assembly of the tailcone. This sounds like fun!
   

A Tail of Two Weeks

 You don't have to tell me, I have been slack. No posting for 9 days and seemingly not huge progress, but rest assured I am moving forward. I have discovered that the aircraft construction business needs to proceed alongside the activities of daily living. This includes working, eating, sleeping and attending to the ebb and flow of  life in a family full of activity and fun. With a  new grandchild delivered up in the last couple of weeks, it gets better and better. I even managed to take advantage of a bright sunny day on Saturday and fit in a very pleasant hour reacquainting myself with the pleasures aloft in the J230 at Murray Bridge. Notwithstanding all this subsidiary activity, there is some forward momentum in the ACF, now to be described.

The tailcone is creeping towards final assembly. This wear plate gets riveted on to one of the fuselage frames, I'm not sure why just yet but I'm sure all will become clear in due course.

 
The fuselage frames all get riveted together including this plate and angle where the F1210 frame joins.

Here they are, all joined up.

Next you get to fabricate this little gem. It is the Tail Skid Bracket. This involves some trimming, drilling and tapping a thread. it looks like this

The work to date has concluded with the preparation of parts for assembly and riveting of the rear bulkhead assembly. The Bulkhead, the Bulkhead doubler, the Stabilator Hinge Attach Brackets, the Shear Clips and the three J Stiffeners are all prepared and ready to go.

The next steps involve many many rivets to the rear bulkhead assembly, and just to top off the treat, this task incorporates 8 nutplates. Something to look forward to.

Home Again, New Life and Back to (Aircraft) Work

We returned on Friday from an excellent week of R&R on the Murray River. We departed from Mannum and headed upstream as far as Big Bend (just short of Swan Reach) and turned back at the half way point.

A few mechanical issues with the houseboat failed to deter the intrepid voyagers who enjoyed a week replete with good food, good wine and good company.

There's never a dull moment here, no sooner were we back than on Friday night  grandchild number seven shrugs off the bonds of confinement and slips into the light of day, well night actually. Jackson Brock Moen, son to Chris and Siobhan. Of course this demanded urgent grandparent attention  in the form of a Saturday trip to Adelaide to visit the happy family. All is well as you can see, meet the star of the show.

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Today the call of the ACF proved irresistible and I put in a full day commencing Section 10, the Tailcone construction.

 Step 1 requires the preparation of the skins that will cover the tailcone. This involves the deburring of many hundreds of holes in several skins as well as deburring the edges of the skins and providing a slight 'break' (bend) on the edge of some skins so that they sit flat on top of  the mating skin.  I have a horrible feeling that I 'broke' some the wrong way, but am not stressing too much. I think I can rectify this if indeed it proves to be an issue.  This took pretty much the whole day, was unimaginably monotonous, and thankfully is now complete. It was so monotonous that I can't bear to insert a photo, which is just as well because I don't have one. I'll start the next session thankful that is behind me. The thought of doing all those wing skins a way down the track does not bear thinking about....................

I finished up the day completing step 2 which requires preparing and putting a slight bend in this angle piece. The instructions say "Flute the F-1210C Angle at the places called out in Figure 2. Each flute needs to 'hump' in the same direction as the 5 hole flange." Goodness me! Fascinated? Here it is.

Next comes the preparation of the fuselage frames. These are they, anxious for further attention

next time.