Tail Cone Finished - Empennage nearly done

The next two kits arrive at my house in Manchester on Thursday and I need to get stuff finished to make some room for the wings and fuselage. Just wondering now where to put a 8ft long 3ft wide tail cone?

Nigel my LAA inspector came over on Friday last week and signed off all the empennage parts so time to get the rivet gun out and bang a good few rivets in to seal up most of the parts for good. I'm amazed just how much I've managed to do in just 76 days and 110 hours to date. After the rivet process is finished I have two fibreglass parts to work on and that will pretty much finish up the empennage. I have also sourced all the wood for the wing stand (bottom right of the picture above) and need to get that built up and can't help thinking the 4 inch by 4 inch piece of timber that goes along the bottom is a little on the large size but its what the plans called for.

Away from the build I've just signed up to do my IMC rating so that will be the focus of my flying for the next couple of months and I have no doubt it'll bake my noodle at times but I think its a really worthwhile rating to get and should improve my flying overall.

Waiting For An Inspector To Call

So I've done pretty much everything I can until Nigel my LAA inspector calls round to check the parts I've made so far. Basically I have lots of parts that need a final inspection before I can finally rivet the skins closed for good and I guess that'll be a good few hours work to do well and then clean up the finished parts to remove the JC5 jointing compound that is as suggested rather messy! Then I have a small amount of finishing trim to sort out for the rudder and vs then the empennage kit will be finished.

I have to construct a wing stand at some point soon, my next two kits the wings and fuselage cleared UK customs today although the ship they are on doesn't dock until the weekend so I've a little bit of time on my side to get straight for the next stage of the build. I currently have a few replacement parts to order but nothing major, the odd electrical connector, some rivets and that's pretty much it. I will hold off until I've checked all the wing ribs as Vans have put out an alert on them and if my parts need replacing them I'll add my replacement parts to the order.

Longest Build Day So Far

Busy day in the workshop after a weekend off as the lads came up to Manchester to see Peter Kay on Friday drink beer and talk nonsense and drink more beer on Saturday..... Sunday was spent recovering!!

Today's tasks included fitting static points left and right, running trim cables, rudder strings and then it was time to rivet the lower and upper tail cone skins to the tail cone frames, quite an undertaking but done now and all that remains to be done is to fit the final skin to the tail cone and this bit of the build will be finished. I will aim to invite my inspector over this week to take a final look at everything and hopefully he'll be able to sign everything off and I can finally rivet all the parts closed and prepare for the wing and fuselage kits arrival hopefully next week and this involves sorting the workshop again to make as much space as possible, I also need to buy some wood for the wing storage frames and build them.

Tail cone final assembly

Started working on the final construction of the tail cone this afternoon, what was supposed to be a few minutes in the workshop turned into two and a half hours!!

The plans call for you to construct the tail cone on two saw horse that are 38 inches high but I didn't want to build anything special to do this stage as space is limited so I gave my work benches a boost using the pop rivet boxes and pleased to report they worked a treat.

My skin bends for the lap joints seem OK, I've only had to rework a couple to make them better and I guess its easier to put more of a bend in than take it out. One thing I have had to do is prime some additional tail cone metal using a paint brush where skins overlap and I also used some of the JC5 jointing compound on one of the joints as I wanted to be sure it was a good joint between the panels.

I am hoping to fly tomorrow and if I don't I'll be in the workshop with rivet gun in hand. I've also noticed most of the skin holes will need a drill running through them as the primer has made the holes a little smaller than when it was bare metal and once again each rivet will be dipped into JC5 before setting - Overkill some might say but I feel it's a worthwhile step if a little messy thing to do.

Squeeze Me

Sunday is always a busy day for me but I managed to spend 4 and a half hours in the workshop starting to rivet the tail cone parts up and as you can see I've done a fair bit today creating the F-1211 Assembly (basically a rear bulkhead). 6 different types of rivets go to make up this section and most of them are hand squeezed and task that is still tough to do but I think my speed and results are improving.

Once minor issues inserting plastic bushes into some attach brackets I managed to split two of them but as the kit came with 5 I'm hoping that Vans over supplied this item and as my next two kits arrive in just over 2 weeks I'll probably hold off ordering replacements until I've checked out the contents of the next two kits.

Time on the build so far 83 hours and 10 minutes.

Big Build Friday - Prime Time

Very productive five hours in the workshop today. I started by finishing the final two tail cone skins which took about an hour to debur and prepare for paint.

So on to paint and I started with the internal parts and did the smaller parts as before in my cardboard box spray booth!! Whilst the small parts were drying I started spraying the inside of the tail cone skins and reckon I mixed close to two litres of of primer this afternoon to do the job and I'm really happy with the results. Next stage of the build is to put the tail cone together which I hope to do over the next week or so.

Building a box of bits

Another three and a half hours in the workshop this afternoon working on metal preparation for the tail cone and tonight I only have 2 skins to prepare then I can prime the metal ready for assembly.

One thing I did today that has been an issue before was countersinking and I'm happy with the results having taken my time and made sure surfaces were level so this time around no mistakes which has to be a good thing as the bulkhead looks like an expensive part.