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RV-7 Construction Log
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Date:  10-6-2013
Number of Hours:  4.70
Manual Reference:  p 8-5
Brief Description:  Aft Fuselage

Wow, two weeks since I've worked on the RV. Only excuses are a Cessna 170 fly-in, and a birthday. Neither very good reasons...

I spent the majority of this work session fabricating a shim to fit between the tail spring mount and the F-712 bulkhead assembly. I had measured a roughly 0.032 gap near the top of one side of the mount/712 joint, and an 0.025 gap on the other side, with the bottom apparently in contact. I had also cracked one of the tabs on the 712 bulkhead, so I decided to make an 0.032 shim to include this tab and see how it fit. Because of the tab, I decided I needed to pick up at least two rivets on each side (Photo 1). I fabricated the shim out of a leftover section of 0.032 2024-T3 spar web from the HRII project. That was handy, as it already had a flange, which meant I didn't have to bend the tab on the shim.

The fit was fine (Photo 2), but the shim being as tall as it was, was still too short to pick up what will be the bottom vertical stab attachment bolt hole in the 712 to lay flush to the spring mount. I solved that by fabricating another shim to pick up the whole flange on the spring mount (Photo 3). Note also that I picked up all the lower rivets. I finished the shim by scuffing, cleaning and priming. I"ll dimple it after giving the primer some time to cure. This second shim was MUCH quicker to fab than the first.

I celebrated the minor victory on the shim by doing an easy job: dimpling all four of the J-channels for the aft fuselage. I dimpled the upper two with tank dies (except for the most forward hole, which will be final drilled in assembly with the forward skins). For the lower two, I used the tank dies to dimple the holes in common with the side skins, and used my sub structure dies on the holes in common with the F-779 aft tail cone skin.

Rivets Today: -8
Rivets Total: 9024
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Shim #1

Shim #1

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Fit check OK.

Fit check OK.

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Shim #2.

Shim #2.

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