E Recently, I was sent an email asking me how about the static ports I installed and how they were connected.  After reading a good bit on the Van's Air Force forum regarding static ports I elected to purchase the flush mount static ports from SafeAir1 and surface mount them.  Note the nipple in the first picture, it is designed to be flush with the skin.  The second and third pictures shows the static lines running up around one bulkhead and through the second.  In this installation, #30 holes were drilled in the longerons and then zip-tied in place.  Notice how the static line running to the instruments is well above the static port.  This prevents (I hope!) water from entering the static system.  (2/9/07)

F Working down the list of little things to complete before moving to the airport including finding a ground for the tail position light.  Although all the electrical equipment is grounded on the firewall with the exception of the stores and the wing position lights, I thought the tail light could be grounded locally as well.  Only one problem, my fuselage is complete.  What you see in this picture is the forward side of the F720 bulkhead.  I used some acetone to remove the SEM primer to expose the aluminum so there will be a good ground.  The 16 AWG wire goes aft through the next two bulkheads and into the rudder bottom.  (3/8/07)

E Working just an hour I feel like I accomplished a lot today.  The first picture on the left is the top of the glair shield.  Loop Velcro cloth was glued to the top of the glair shield, a grommet was installed to protect the GPS and XM radio antennas that have to pas through it and edge banding was installed to trim it out nicely.  To cap it off, I installed the "EXPERIMENTAL" sticker on the bottom side of the glair shield.  No missing that when getting in and with the canopy closed, you won't see it.  (3/15/07)

F Some times you just have to work with your spouse on some things.  The other night I took Nora out for dinner at the mall that just happens to have a "Things Remembered" store in it.  So I brought along the Van's data plate and had it engraved for $41.  It took a day but when I got home I drilled it to the aft left fuselage, under the HS.  Before pop-riveting it in place I etched, alodined, and painted underneath it.   (5/17/07)

E The top forward skin has now been riveted in place and I'm yet to take a picture of it, maybe tomorrow.  Tonight I cleaned up the adhesive left over from doing fiberglass work on the tail section and applied the temporary N-number.  The "list" is getting shorter every day.  (5/27/07)

F Doug Bell makes these drop in replacement tail wheels for around $200, money well spent, IMHO.  The real advantage to this type of tail wheel is that it presents the face of the wheel to any pothole the tail might drop into.  This will allow the wheel to climb up out of the hole.  Van's standard tail wheel works more like a tail hook and has been known to catch on things, like if you dropped the tail off the edge of a concrete pad, and pull the aft two bulkheads out.  The other thing to notice is the Eye-bolts used to attach the steering spring.  A similar arrangement is put on the bottom of the rudder horn.  The advantage here is the spring is almost horizontal and should be out of the way of the rudder bottom.  In addition, when the spring starts wearing away at the attachment points, the Eye-bolts are easy to replace. This was not my idea, it was in one of the OLD RVaitors, which are good reading. (Parts List, four of each are required: Eye Bold Drilled AN42B-5, Cable Shackles AN115-21, Bolt AN3-6  (Drilled shank), Washer AN960-10, Castle nut AN310-3, Cotter pins as needed)

The wheel bolt is long and bushed out on purpose so a Cessna tow bar may be used on the tail wheel.  (The white bag is 20 lbs of OO buck shot.  It is helping hold the tail down with the engine mounted and no tail or wings installed.) (5/27/07)

E Most RV builders don't enjoy working with fiberglass.  Yes, it can be a itchy and you MUST protect yourself from it but I find the ease at which you can make unusual shapes just amazing.  The first step it align the gear leg fairings so the plane flies straight.  (The upper intersection fairings on my plane are RV-7 parts from Van's and were good enough to line up the gear leg fairings.  They aren't pretty and I will clean them up in the weeks to come.)  Everything was taped off so the fiberglass would not stick to the leg fairings or wheel pants. Modeling clay to shape the fairing.  This picture was taken midway through the forming process.  (5/17/08)

F Once the clay is the shape you want it, lay some fiberglass over it.  In this case I put two layers of bi-directional cloth on it.  One helpful tip, draw on the wheel pant how far you want the fiberglass to extend past the clay.  (5/17/08)

E After the FG hardened, a metal putty knife was slid between the new FG and the packing tape.  This popped the fairing loose without any problems.  To remove the fairing I drew a line from the wheel pant part line to the widest part of the gear leg fairing on both the upper and lower part of the fairing.  A Dremal was then used to cut the split line on the lower fairing which facilitated its removal.  (5/17/08)

 F With the fairing back at my shop it was easy enough to trim and split the rest of the way.  However, prior to splitting them, a second layer of fiberglass was laid up and this time peel-ply was used to help smooth the surface.  (5/17/08)

[Sorry, no picture available] E After the fairings were trimmed the wheel pants were installed back on the plane.  With the fairings positioned properly they were drilled to the wheel pants and held in place with cleco's.  (Dipping the cleco's in Vaseline keeps the fiberglass from sticking to them.  A mix of flox and epoxy was used to glue them to the wheel pants.  Once that hardened, I sanded down the edge of the intersection fairing and laid on two more layers of fiberglass over the edge and wheel pants.  These strips were no wider than an inch and a half.  This may be overkill but I figure the wheel pants take one heck of a beating, especially on grass fields.  (5/17/08)

F With all that work done, it was time to sand the fiberglass and use micro-balloons and epoxy to start filling the imperfections in the fairing.   (5/17/08)

E The best way to fill all the voids in the fiberglass is to mix up a very thick batch of epoxy and micro balloons.  It should be at thick as cake icing so it doesn't sag when you butter it on.  I used two pumps of West System's epoxy for each wheel pant.  When mixed with the micro balloons this was just enough to cover the front and back of one wheel pant.  Once the stuff hardens I used sand paper wrapped around a section of old ax handle and a flat sander to sand it smooth.  One wheel pant took about an hour and a half to get it to the stage you see in this photo.  Once sanded they will be covered in straight epoxy to fill any pin holes and make them ready for painting.  (5/28/08)

F In an effort to keep my plane as light as possible, I never installed pockets of any type.  This worked out great, until I realized that the only place to store the fuel sampler was in my tool bag.  This was OK but there are just sometimes when I don't want that in the back.  The question came where to store the fuel sampler, to which the answer was to make a simple bracket out of some scrap aluminum and screw it to the flap motor brace, behind the pilot seat.  (11/12/08)

E After flying for over 200 hours the need has arisen for some tied downs in the baggage area.  I found these little gems for $7.95 from Pit Posse.  They are designed to hold motorcycles so they should be strong enough to hold anything in my baggage compartment.  The picture on the left shows the mockup floor board and rib I made for testing.  Because the rivets are already installed in my plane with pull rivets, I had to drill a small relief in the bottom of the tie down base.  This allows it to be centered over an existing rivet.  The center to center distance on the base was close but not an exact match to the rivet spacing, thus I elected to use the base to space the riv-nuts between existing rivets.

Once in place, the base can be used as the drill guide for the 1/4" hole required for the #10 keyed riv-nuts (Pictured along with the riv-nut tool used to install them.  The pictures should be self explanatory.  (11/12/08)

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