Aft Fuselage Rear Deck

I prepped quite a few pieces this round saving on setup time.

This is the F-01414 - Aft Deck, primed and dimpled. Only the 8 holes shown here are AN426 type rivets, all the others are AN470 round head rivets.

...plus these four on the rear flange...

F-01409 Frame

I only noticed after I'd primed, that I hadn't rounded the faceted edges. Hence the next few shots here showing where I ran the edges over the Scotchbrite wheel.

I'm still amazed at how accurate the pre-punched parts are. Every now and then I need to run the drill through a hole to clear out some paint and maybe a tiny bit of aluminium, but for the most part all these parts fit together perfectly - Nice job Vans!!

This is page 10-27 - Aft Deck Installation

It's always satisfying finally putting these parts on to test fit, knowing how much work has gone into preparing the parts.

Yeah I know, the bench is really messy.

Had to find the longer 12" drill bit to ensure it was perpendicular to the face...

Even with the 12" bit, the drill was very close to rear flange.

This shows the angle I had to be on for the hole to be perpendicular to the face...

Drilling holes in the F-01411D Horizontal Stab Attach Bar Support Angle. This is one of the chunkiest pieces of angle in this part of the kit.

When you understand what it's attaching, I'm ok with that.

Now this one little rivet in the corner was trying to be difficult. I needed to contort the bucking bar into that small space to set that one.

Finally got to use my double offset cup rivet set - I knew there was a reason I bought it.

You can't have enough tools!!

Unfortunately, not everyone is competent in using them. Oh well, it's a learning experience. This one obviously came out...

Almost there.

Static Air Tubes & Antenna Cable Install

As the build has taken a break until I can relocate, I've not completed some of the more recent posts - I'd better do that now.

Regarding the static air system, I decided I like the Cleaveland Aircraft Static Air kit much better for two reasons:

1) the static air port on the Cleaveland system looks much better than a cheap rivet. I've read many of the discussions on Vans Airforce relating to convex heads creating a localized low pressure potentially affecting the measured static air reading, but from what I can tell, that's mostly propaganda and those using the updated system have no issues with them; and

2) the tube connections look and feel much more heavy duty than small t-pieces provided in the Van kit. These larger black connectors make it much easier to disconnect/reconnect if required as well as providing a good seal.

This shows the Vans supplied static air t-piece compared to the above...

Here, I was simply measuring the length of tube required to create a nice smooth bend.

As the next photo shows, even after I heated the tube with a heat gun, I could only get the tube on half the distance I was aiming for. I'll need to try again at some point to get it on all the way.

Here is the UAT coax antenna cable ready for connection.....which probably won't happen for another 2-3 years I'm guessing.

In a previous life, I worked in the automotive industry and I small trick I picked up was the use of cloth tape to reduce cable chaffing and damage caused by vibration.

Therefore, at each zip tie I've wrapped the cable with a piece of cloth tape for that reason. I know - there's probably a better chance of vibration along the cable where the zip tie isn't. I'll just have to keep an eye on that.

The next few photos show the rudder cables running through the bulkhead grommets...

This is the cloth tape I used as vibration/chaffing protection for the cables.

It comes in various widths.

Rudder cable guides

Although they look very blocky and not very aesthetically pleasing, they perform a function and hopefully they do it well and keep the cables away from skin.

These are the countersunk F-01497A Rudder Cable Guides...

before and after countersinking...or more accurately, after and before countersinking.

and both the F-01479A & B sets...

I was a few AACQ4-4 rivets short for some reason and had to order some more - yes, the initial inventory was checked and the quantities were correct as per the inventory - qty14.

As can be seen below, the centre of three of the rivets broke off flush with the rivet head and one of them pulled out completely. I've asked the question and apparently this is still considered ok. At least if that opinion changes, they'll be easy to replace. I may end up replacing them at some point anyway so they're all the same.

Done for now....until the rivet order arrives.

This shows the rudder cables installed and the cross-over required.

Aft Fuselage Bulkhead Assembly

Today I continued on with riveting the bulkheads. All the below parts played nice so didn't have any issues riveting.

F-01410 Bulkhead

As I could get the pneumatic squeezer to all of these rivets, these parts were very easy to get consistent rivets.

Here we - all the internal rivets done...

...from the front...

F-01408 Bulkhead from the rear

Below I've riveted the two small bulkheads and the Battery Angles have been riveted onto the Bellcrank ribs.

F-01406 Bulkhead with all the nutplates attached...

Here are a couple of close-ups of the little suckers...

Ahhh, some more nice flush rivets.

I had a little time left over so thought I'd get the bottom and top skins out to begin preparing...