Fuselage (Aft Fuselage and Longerons)

	22 Nov 04	Per the instructions, I ought to be bending longerons. I can't find any reason to do them yet as they don't go into the fuselage until the center section is done. They can wait. Here's the tailwheel mount. Note the good and bad news here. Bad news is that unlike other's noted on the web, this one in not powdercoated. The good news is that it's already drilled for the tailwheel rod.
		Laid out the cut for the tailwheel mount on the lower aft skin. Hole was just about the right size if cut per plans.
	23 Nov 04	The aft lower skin was a real pain to bend. The .040 thickness has some serious spring-back. After scratching my head and posting the Yahoo RV-7 board, I came up with this method. No hammer required. Just clamp it down and lean into the skin until you feel it give a bit. Seemed to work well.
		The 712 bulkhead gets fitted. Overall, once the top edges of the skin were bent in a bit, this went together OK. Not too bad. The only issue is a 3/32 gap between tailwheel mount and the 711 bulkhead (plans say to shim as necessary).
	26 Nov 04	Finally some serious visual progress. Lower skin down, 707 and 708 bulkheads cleco'd and the stringers slid into place. The biggest problem was trying to determine if the forward end of the stringer got trimmed in the same manner as the aft. Drawing 18 says on ly the aft end, but after paging through the plans, Drawing 25 gives a nice view of the forward end.
		Getting there....
		Just about ready to start drilling the stringers and the match drill all the other holes. This is going to take a while. Plan is to have all this drilled, de-burred, dimpled, and primed so I can rivet this thing together over Christmas Holidays.
	27 Nov 04	After getting the basics put together, the twist had to be checked. Found that by suspending the plumb-bob from the 707 bulkhead, then sighting down through the tooling holes, you can tell if the front is square. A digital level on the tail indicated that it was about .1 to .3 degrees out. I used some divers lead shot weights to stabilize the structure while I added some shims. In the end, this thing will twist several degrees and won't be stable until the aft deck is installed....
	28 Nov 04	Drilled the stringers and most of the other holes to #40. Man, there's lots of holes in this thing.
	29 Nov 04	After all the screwing around with the lower aft skin, it appears that it's basically in pretty good shape. A little finishing of the side skins and the interface ought to look pretty good.
	30 Nov 04	Found a gap in the tailwheel mount that was about.120. Per plans I need to make a shim and get that ready for installation before riveting.
		Started disassembly of the whole thing. Darn! Reverse visual progress. When I was assembling this, I figured that the lower aft skin and 711/712 assembly was a real PITA to fit with the stringers in place. The solution was to pull them out about a foot, install the lower aft assembly, then slide the stringers into place. Worked the same way for the 709 bulkhead as well. To disassemble, remove the 706 bulkhead, slide the stringers out about a foot, then the aft lower assembly easily drops out. This might be a little more difficult when dimpled though..
	4 Dec 04	Managed to get a decent amount of progress done. Removed vinyl from the skins. Also cleaned up the tail wheel mount hole and made the hole for socket access to the mount bolt.
	5 Dec 04	Whooped today! Just a whole bunch 'o deburrin' and dimplin'  going on here today. All stringers, skins, and bulkheads got the treatment. Maybe get all this primed next weekend, but I still have to smooth all the edges. Also, just went over 600 hours on the project.
	5 Dec 04	This startes the saga of F711 bulkhead. I had riveted the two sides together, but then went and riveted the AL bars on the wrong side. Tried to this to the fuselage and found that the aft holes were OK, but the forward holes were way off and no way to get them close, even for AD4 rivets. I figured I just put a doubler on the flange. No problem, right? Well, once I got done the flanges looked like swiss cheese and I made the command decision to order new parts. A call to Van's and $45, and the parts were on the doorstep by the end of the week. Cool.
	6 Dec 04	Picked up the tailwheel from the local powdercoaters. My TW assembly did not come pre-powder coated so I had it done. Took apart the entire assembly for coating. Sure looks good.
	12 Dec 04	Spent the last part of the week getting the aft fuselage ready for priming. Once all this was ready, actual paint only took about 15 minutes. Hopefully this will all be riveted together by end of the year. Probably cleco this back together then start on the center section.
		For something that should have taken 1/2 hour, this thing took about an hour and a half. This was really an "I hate my airplane" kind of day. The F712 bulkhead riveted fine. No problem. Then installed the tailwheel mount. Needed a little massaging. That worked. Then started the F711. Forward rivets were somewhat a pain, but the aft row was not cooperating!. Getting a bucking bar in there at funky angles, and the tailwheel mount right in the middle,  just didn't help the process. Any how, this is ready to be cleco'd to the aft fuselage...yea, I know, I have the wrong bolts in the mount for now. They'll get replaced after skins are on.
	15 Dec 04	So here's the fuselage going back together again, this time to fit the new F711 bulkhead. I found it easiest to place the F710 bulkhead, the slide the stringers through it. This seems to be much better than wrestling the the part trying to get it around the stringers. Next step is to place the lower aft skin in place, cleco that to forward bottom skin and F710 bulkhead, then slide stringers through/ against F711/F712 bulkhead.
		New F711 is fitted to the lower aft skin. Cool. Works good.
	18 Dec 04	The aft section is fitted for drilling. The aft row of rivets still didn't line up perfect, but drilling to a #30 worked well. I'll just have a row of -4s on each side.
		Took everything apart and started riveting the F712 bulkhead. Also drilled out the tailwheel mount bolt holes to 1/4" and drilled the keeper rivets for the mount/F712 bulkhead.
	20 Dec 04	The aft fuse is starting to be prepped for riveting so this is going together for the last time. Note the right upper stringer with the plate nuts. I'm planning on running the wire bundle from the tail along this stringer instead of along the floor.
	22 Dec 04	I received the servos and mounting brackets for the auto-pilot. Went with TruTrak but splurged for the pitch servos that come with the DigiFlight II. Note that the drawings that arrive with the servo are slightly wrong. They show an RV-6 mount but it appears the -7  has the lower flange of the length-wise belly rib bent left instead of to the right. Not a problem, just different.
	27 Dec 04	Got back from three days in Seattle. Paul Eastham dropped by to assist with a bit of the riveting. After about 3 hours we made some decent visual progress. From the count, we probably drove about 360 to 400 rivets. The vast majority were back-riveted and it seemed to make a difference. Overall, the sides and bottom look very smooth.
		Here's the fuse after today's session. Need to finish about 10 rivets on the forward upper stringer and the tail rivets.
	28 Dec 04	Another couple hours and this is pretty much done. Finished the tail rivets but had a couple dings along the lower sides at the 711 aft rivet line. I'll have a couple spots to fill when this gets painted.
	3 Feb 05	It was finally time to start bending these longerons. I had started out using the 721 canopy sills but that doesn't work due to the location of the bends. You really need the template. Bad thing was that I couldn't locate the DWG 17 with the template. Good thing was that a local RV-9A builder had his spare drawing and the bend is the same. Basically, I glued it down to some wood then cut out the bend.
	6 Feb 05	After several nights of cussing this thing, the left longeron is bent. I still need to do the forward downward bend, but the lengthy shallow bend is done. The right longeron (bottom at left) is still in work. These things really take some time and a lot of patience!
	9 Feb 05	Got the bends done, then it was time for drilling the canopy sills. Evidently, the bend template is accurate because the sills lined up with no problems.
	11 Feb 05	After both sills were drilled, it was time for the downward bend and the 17-degree twist. This is a really bad photo but the downward bend and the twist were fairly easy.
	12 Feb 05	Finally, to wrap this up, the aft end of both sills get the treatment. Note: there are some additional cuts for tip-ups.