Fuselage 21 – Return from priming


Its been over a month since my last post, and in that time, I’ve not touched the project. I was in Europe for two weeks, and came down with a nasty bug. Combine that with a heavy workload and a few final exams, and well, you get a month in which the project sits unattended. I also had a welcome surprise waiting for me in the hangar. After all, beer is the way to my heart.

 

I started today be retrieving the parts that I primed in the last session. Which means its finally time to do some riveting! Believe it or not, this will be the first riveting I’ve done on the fuselage!


The front seat back was quick work. AN470 rivets all around, and the squeezer got the job done quickly. The rear seat back is another matter. I had put off completing the top of the seat back, as I had not received the fastback kit when I last worked on it. Now that I have the fastback kit, I’m not sure how to assemble the top. The fiberglass portion that is included in the fastback kit, doesn’t really line up with the remaining top parts.

Showplanes instructs you to delete the F-833C from your order. However, the F-833E, and the F-833F are still included. The fastback kit itself includes a fiberglass seat top. Unfortunately, there are no instructions on how to complete the seat top, and there is only one picture of the part online. After fiddling with the parts, its is not immediately apparent to me as to how these parts are intended to fit together. I will need to contact Bryan at Showplanes for an explanation.

***UPDATE October 26th*** I emailed Bryan at Showplanes this morning about the seat back, and within an hour I had a detailed response. Here it is:

Hi Peter,
I apologize for not having instructions addressing this, it was not a issue on the earlier RV-8 fuse.The extra parts you show do not get used, these photo’s hopefully will help. Cut the back angle off the seat back and fit the fiberglass seat top as shown. Once you have fit the seat to the fuse and drill a couple of holes to hold it’s location you can remove it and add the .032 angle and backing material. Cut the extra fiberglass flange material to fit. Please let me know if you have further questions.
Regard’s,
Bryan

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My final project for the day was to back rivet the stiffeners to the cockpit floors. Its been a long time since I did any back riveting. So quick! So easy!

***UPDATE October 31st*** I didn’t notice a note in the instructions to not rivet the -C stiffeners at this time (that would the first three starting from the left in the photo below on both seat floors – 6 total) I believe this is so that you can still insert them easily. I think I will be ok, but don’t make the same mistake I did.


  
  

One other quick note. I bought this 175,000 BTU monster last winter. A few reviews noted that the heater wouldn’t start up after a summer in storage. With cold weather approaching, I wanted to test it out, so that if any repairs are needed I can get them done before its needed. Thankfully, it fired up immediately, and I cannot see any problems with it whatsoever. Now, to buy some more tax-free diesel!

Session time: 6.0 hours


About Peter

plbarrett.com | Certified Flight Instructor (Single & Multi-Engine, Instrument, and Advanced Ground) | Commercial Helicopter

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