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[May 5, 2007]


I spent most of today helping my EAA chapter with their flyin. We ended up having a ton of people show up and had a lot of kids get Young Eagle flights. While I worked most of the day, I snuck out of my duties for a little bit and got to meet Kirk Groves, owner of the recently finished RV-8 "Dakota Queen". His plane is beautiful and I got to pick his brain on a lot of his design decisions. Of course, the best stuff comes always from the question "What would you do differently?".

Anyways, I didn't think I would have any build time left for today, but I ended up getting home a few hours earlier than normal. So I cracked open a beer to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and got crackin on the bulkheads. The F-706,707 and 708 bulkheads were straightforward to rivet. However, I did leave some of the ribs out of the 706 because I am waiting for my TruTrak pitch servo mounting bracket first. This isn't going to hold me up on iota.

I then moved onto the F-705 bulkhead. First I riveted the spar the the bottom of the bulkhead, being careful not to rivet where the belly ribs interface. The only gotcha here is you need to put a rivet in under the doubler before the doubler goes in, as the arrow shows. I also spot primed the side channels with GBP-988 where they mate.

UPDATE 5/9/2007 - I got a nice email from Paul Winkels (Minnesota RV-7 Builder) tonight pointing out that I riveted some spots where I shouldn't of on the F-705 bulkhead. Sure enough, on the very end where the side channels meet the bottom of the bulkhead (circled in red) these holes get riveted with some sort of rib for I think the seat ribs, or the baggage ribs. Either way these guys need to come out. Thanks a lot Paul for pointing this out!!


Next I marked off where not to rivet on the side channels of the bulkheads. Note that this is for a tip-up, and both sides don't get the same rivets skipped.


Next I backriveted the seatback attachment parts to the top of the bulkhead.


Finally, I clecoed it onto the rest of the F-705. Actually, dummy me did rivet this on. Half way through squeezing the rivets, I saw some flanges where a rivet goes through that would be impossible to drill, dimple and rivet. I looked at the plans and sure enough, you had to wait till later to do this! So I had the joy of drilling out a dozen or more rivets in thick angle. Ah, the joys of building.


Finally, you will notice that I didn't bolt on the seat belt attachment brackets. The way I see it, some of these have to be cut to make room for interference with the belly ribs, and also the nuts might interfere with dimpling or bucking some rivets. No need to waste time and bolts on this.
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Last Modified: August 13, 2023