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RV-7 Construction Log
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Date: 11-4-2012
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Number of Hours: 3.60
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Manual Reference: p 7-9
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Brief Description: Left Wing - Flap Brace and Aileron Gap Seal
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Today I unclecoed the flap brace and and aileron gap seal from the wing, and deburred all holes and edges. I then scuffed, cleaned and primed the interior (forward) surfaces and the faying surfaces. I also scuffed, cleaned, and primed the remaining areas of the aft face of the rear spar that hadn't previously been primed.
The manual only seems to address riveting these two parts to the rear spar. I spent quite a bit of time reading and re-reading the plans and manual, and never did find where in the assembly process they get riveted to their respective skins. The aileron gap seal to skin joint has no other parts, so I don't see a problem dimpling both the seal and the skin, so that's what I'll do after the primer has had a day or two to cure. Dimpling the top flange of the gap seal and the aft edge of the top skin will have to take place before the seal is riveted to the rear spar, to avoid having to dimple both parts at once.
The flap brace is a different story. It gets sandwiched between the flap hinge and the bottom skin, with no clear instructions on what gets dimpled or countersunk. For the flap side of the hinge, the flap assembly instructions say to dimple the skin, countersink the flap spar, and the leave the hinge drilled only. This seems to be the consensus on VAF as to how to handle the wing side of the hinge as well. The flap brace in assembly with the hinge should provide sufficient depth to guide the countersink pilot.
I did go ahead and rivet the brace to the rear spar, per instructions. The first time riveting the -8 and -9 length rivets on the inboard end, I made some SERIOUS smileys, to the point of "smearing" a couple of the factory heads. I did manage to get all three drilled out without damaging the holes. Before the second try at riveting, somewhere back in the dusty recesses of my mind I remembered that long rivets take a bit more energy to set, so I upped the pressure at the gun to 70 psi from the 55 I'd been using on the shorter -4 and -5s.
Rivets Today: 29
Rivets Total: 5107
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Flap brace riveted to left rear spar.
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Inboard end of flap brace rivets after the second try...
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