Section 8 : Anti-Servo Tab

No special problem, completed in a couple of days. A few -3 squeezed rivets were very easy to set with the "improved" Avery squeezer. All other rivets were pop, a pleasure to set with the pneumatic riveter.
Here are the two symmetrical AST completed:

Section 7 Rudder

Another heavy "learning by mistakes" Section.
Let's review page by page what happened
Page 07-02
Step 7: Some difficulties to have the spar caps as flush to the rudder spar as shown on Figure 3. 


Page 07-03
Step 1: I had more space than needed for the upper hinge  bracket and the upper hinge assembly although it is specified to not put more than one AN960-10 washer. I noticed that when tightening the bolt it is possible to suppress the space. I hope it's OK ...


Step 2: no indication provided about the rivets direction. I chose to put the manufactured head on the side visible rather than inside the skin: big mistake! In this position, the shop head  is on the rib side. As the rib is much thinner than the spar, the rivet once squeezed pushes the rib's flange away from the spar! If you put the manufactured head on the rib side, you can push the head while squeezing, preventing the rib flange to move away from the spar.  I had the consolation to find out that another builder had made the same mistake but too late (see Schmetterling's blog).
Lesson learned: always read other builders blogs before you make a mistake!


Step 3: The order provided by VAN is wrong because if you first rivet the hinge bracket first, there is a chance that you will create deformation of the  spar caps  which will not be flushed with the spar when the remaining holes are riveted. You should rivet first the "remaining holes" and then the spar caps.


The rest of the section went pretty well, although I got tired of struggling with the rivet squeezer and managed to do the improvement of the Avery Hand Squeezer listed earlier.


The best part:
Here is a draggy rudder:

And one hour and 200+ pulled rivets later (I kid you not) here is a finished rudder:

I did it with the help of a pneumatic rivet puller from Harbor Freight: a must for the RV-12 builder and a great investment for $70 (compared to the $300 of the Avery Hand Squeezer).

Finally fixed the Avery Rivet Squeezer!

... Not that there is anything wrong with it (to quote Jerry Seinfeld) but...
I have been unable to squeeze consistently the AN4 rivets: too much efforts required to do a good job in one pass. Two passes are a pain because of the need to readjust the gap. Walking in Lowe's store, I found steel pipes in the plumbing section: I  bought a 3/4"X30 pipe that I cut in half. I now have handles that are 5 inches longer, just the additional leverage I needed to squeeze in one pass. The 3/4" diameter fits perfectly these sleeves over the original handles. I just drilled holes and put screws (visible on  the photo) to keep the sleeves from sliding.

This picture shows the difference in length with the original handles:

Now one additional benefit is that the rigidity of the handles is much higher and there is no flex under pressure of the squeeze. This allows a better feeling of where we stand in the squeezing process. Following this modification, I was able to squeeze a dozen AN4 in one squeeze each with an excellent compliance to standards.

Cost: $8

Note that this modification is reversible. For AN -3 rivets,  you could remove the sleeves and even put the rubber grips back but I doubt it is  necessary

This is what it is all about

My friend Peter Van Schalkwyk just completed the 40 hours phase 1 tests on the Waiex (i.e. SONEX with a Y empennage) he built in  his garage during the last three years. Now he is free to take passengers and fly anywhere he wants to... and where do you think he flew first ?

Peter and his lovely wife Shayne at First Flight Airport, Kill Devil Hill, NC, August 15 2010
Congratulation Peter for a job well done!