Hard boring work cleaning up the spar, not much to see. 
 
Here are a couple of interesting pictures from before the boring stuff. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

All of the gun set rivets (all but 20) are set and the spar looks terrific. Getting on a roll and doing them per rib bay, I was able to set 18 rivets in nine minutes. About 30 seconds a rivet. 
 
That included moving my backing plate as I started each bay, moving the bucking bar every two rivets and using a wood tool and hammer to seat every rivet before using the gun. Taking a couple of small breaks I did 200 rivets in about 2.5 hours. 
 
Riveted spar pictures. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

This is the task I have been worried about the most. The rivet gun has really made it much easier and reliable. It was well worth the new compressor to use with the borrowed gun. 
 
About a third of the rivets are done and all the bolts are in. It should be finished soon. 
 
Rivet pictures 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

All cleaned up, some minor rework, a test piece and I will start to rivet. I will clean up the Left Main Spar after the RIght is riveted. 
 
I was going to clean them together but I don't want any confusion about which angles go on which spar! 
 
Here are today's pictures. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

Yesterday, I finished upsizing the holes to final size as well as dimpling and countersinking as required. 
 
Today was starting to get the spar ready for riveting. 
 
Here are the latest pictures. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

I flew Friday and never got into the shop. I had a serious system problem develop just after my last post. Other than fly on Friday, it has taken me until today to get all back to normal on my workhorse desktop Mac. 
 
My back up plans worked well and I had to use them! I am still scratching my head as to what happened exactly but it was most definitely a system software crash and not a hardware crash. 
 
All my digital images are intact, but I did restore from backups - which were all up to date. 
 
Here are the pictures from Thursday and Today. My new compressor arrived Saturday and made its shop debut today. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

No pictures for today (Thursday) but work goes on. All the holes in the Right Main Spar have been drilled to at least pilot size. Upsizing of the holes may start Friday. I'm flying Friday so I don't know how much work I will be doing. 
 
Wednesday was a scheduled day off from building. I was supposed to fly in the afternoon so I spent all morning and early afternoon doing catch up on all the parts I still need to order. The weather turned south and I didn't fly so I kept on buying. A taxi light to go with the landing light, ordered the engine and prop and a bunch of other stuff, including pitot and static ports, tygon tubing to run to the pressure ports, new tools for the shop including a new compressor. I actually didn't quite get everything ordered, I still need some additional hardware - nuts and bolts etc. 
 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

The left will continue to be worked on when the right reaches the same state. 
 
Here are the latest pictures. 
 
I've had a couple of interesting day's. Sunday we ran into a woman at the grocery store that Kathy knows. Her husband is building a plane (RV-8) with his brother. Kathy had told me this before but I thought the project was in a hanger somewhere. They are only 1/2 mile west on Jackson, so I'm not the only person building a plane downtown. 
 
I've decided to stake a new claim. My new claim is that I am the closest person to Zero N and Zero East building a plane in Chicago. Since I'm 11 blocks away, that means I'm claiming to be the only person building a plane within a circle with a radius of 1.5 miles centered on State and Madison. Just to be clear I mean actually doing the construction within that circle, not just living or working there. 
 
It seems like a sure thing! 
 
I went over and met them and saw their project Sunday and Monday they came over and looked at mine. Very nice guys and I think we will be good resources for each other. They have generously let me try a couple of their solid rivet tools which I may use on the spars. I brought them some black clecos which was a size they didn't have. I don't think they need them often, but the next time they do they will have some. 
 
I'm scheduled to fly Wednesday, but I'm not sure the weather will hold. We shall see. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

Just a little more dimpling countersinking and final hole size drilling to go on the Left Main Spar. Then on to the Right. 
 
I will have both spars assembled before I start to put a nice finish on all the pieces. Then when I reassemble, I will rivet one spar and then the other. 
 
Here are the recent pictures. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

Third day in a row with a post and pictures. This is an exciting piece to be working on. It's big, important and complicated. Lot's of fun. 
 
Here are today's pictures. 
 
At the end of today I had all the pieces attached and about a fifth of all the pilot holes drilled. 
 
Tomorrow its drill, updrill and if I make a lot of progress, countersinking for a good number of holes. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

Here are the pictures for today. 
 
More tomorrow. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

It was good to get back in the shop and start building again. 
 
Here are the latest pictures. 
 
I hope to make some progress this week. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

Katie gave us a scare but she is recovered. I ended up getting quite sick with the flu but I am doing fine. Kathy was off for the week and she and I had a couple of outings so I stayed away from the factory. 
 
Tomorrow is back to work time. I also hope to get back in the air, but the weather doesn't look real promising. We shall see. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers