My RV-12iS build log. Hopefully I'll post a lot of short videos to document it and photos only where needed. This project began late June 2017 and should be completed in April/May 2017.
It so purdy! This actually wasn't as much work as I thought it would be. the bottom skin went on quickly. I used the method of securing the skin with just a couple clecos.. then inserting rivets in every other hole.. (the entire skin). Then filling in the remaining holes with clecos. The rivets go in easily this way. If you put the clecos in first, there is the tendency for the clecos not to line up the holes -exactly-. The rivets do that.. so best to put them in first.
Here is the walk-through video of all the internal rivets.
I took the winter off (December-April) and came back to a messy hangar with rust accumulating on any tools left out. I guess it was a bit more humid in there than I thought.
In this video, I show the attachment of the first skin on the left wing. I decided NOT to prime the skin, as I think it would add too much weight for the value you'd get from it. I thought about only spraying the areas that mate with the ribs.. I suppose that would have been a fair tradeoff. Instead, I opted for bare aluminum skin.
You'll see that I accidentally skipped ahead and attached the flapperon hinges rematurely. These had to be removed because the skin needs to go on first, then the hinge is inserted through a slot in the skin. I did a careful job at removing these. Later on, when I did re-attach them, all the rivets seemed pretty solid and there was very little wiggle in the existing holes in the ribs that the hinges attach to.
Also, all of the wiring is in. Including the newly approved dual-landing light. Unfortunately, when I connected the wires to the Molex connector, they were not in the right order. I ended up cutting it off... That Molex connector was discontinued many years ago. Instead, I purchased this Microfit 3.0 connector which can carry up to 5 amps. I checked the specs on the landing light, and because its LED, it consumes less than that.
Van's directions need to be updated. There is an additional wire which connects this light directly to the other light. That is so both lights can be in sync for the wig-wag effect.
Here's a photo of the P-touch heat-shrink tube labels. very nice.
Here we see some photos of the nice, shiny bottomskins
Note that the grommet on the inboard-most rib was initially put in backwards. It was obvious later when I did the wiring.
I did end up putting the extra rivets in that I found while doing this walkthrough.
Here we see two rear ribs which apparently did not get washed well after etching. I was unsure how much acid corrosion had or will happen in the future, so I ordered replacements over the winter and finally installed them when I began work again in May 2018.
Fluted all of them.. tried to do many gentle flutes in the center of the ribs, rather than just a couple big flutes.
Etched and primed all the ribs. Also just sprayed some primer on the main spar. I did not prepare it in any way. If the primer sticks, it sticks.. if not.. then .. it'll just flake off.
As it turned out (me from the future), there were some spots on the left main spar that flaked off over the winter. Most of these spots were the pre-riveted bare-aluminum flanges. I tried to rough them up a bit and spray a little more primer. I doubt it will stick.
Hello from the future again.. Here is a walkthrough of the rear wing spars. A short video, just to document what it looks like.
The hinges were a pain. The problem was that you have to press-fit a bearing into a piece of aluminum. This was eventually accomplished with a C-clamp, and a socket that was big enough to press only on the material and not the bearing.
I'm not sure exactly why, but two rivets of the hinge are flush, and one isn't.
