12/18/00: Prior to building the fuel tanks I had heard a lot of stories about how awful the material used to seal the tanks is. The stuff used to be called ProSeal; the material I got from Van's doesn't really have a name on it, so I'll stick with using the old name. Now that I am well into the tanks I can say that ProSeal is a pain to mix, gets everywhere that you don't want it to be, and has an odor that even offends our dogs ... they have taken to howling outside the shop during the last few evenings. But ProSeal has been a piece of cake compared to .....
cheap cellophane tape!!
OK. It goes like this. Having heard how ProSeal gets everywhere, I decided to tape off areas where ProSeal would be inconvenient. The first parts to get ProSealed and riveted were two rows of stiffeners on the bottom of the tanks. I carefully taped off the holes for the ribs, filler neck and tank drain. I had previously sprayed the stiffeners and skins with Alumaprep to insure that everything was clean. After applying the tape and setting up to back rivet the stiffeners, I was ready to mix up my first batch of ProSeal. It was the Monday before Thanksgiving. I was on vacation and enjoying the opportunity to spend more time in the shop. On went the latex gloves (my wife, the health care professional, says that they are "procedure gloves"), the 3M respirator (she says it is ugly), and the lab coat that they were throwing out at work. I pop open the can and get ready to mix some ProSeal with the catalyst. The first thing I note is that this stuff is thick. I mean really solid. Hmmmmm. Maybe that is because it was 28 degrees last night. Maybe I should bring the stuff inside and let it warm up a bit. So we went to Costco to get ready for the large appetites soon to descend on us. When we got back I opened up the ProSeal again and noted that it still had the consistency of salt-water taffy. Tuesday rolled around and I spent the entire day watching movies. Sometimes I just don't feel like going out to the shop. Wednesday arrived, and so did my brother Larry and Diane's son Jason. Some quick math showed that we didn't have enough chairs or a large enough table. The day started with an animated argument as to how I would absolutely NOT go out to the store and get some plywood so we could enlarge the table. It completed with my trip to the store to get some plywood so that the table could be made large enough. Thanksgiving Day was consumed with, well, consuming. And that night both Diane and I came down with the crud. We were out for the count until Sunday, when I finally made it out to the shop and mixed up my first batch. After the first few stiffeners I noted that in a few areas the tape (remember that stuff?) was too close to a stiffener. No problem ... I'm comfortable enough with the ProSeal now to not need areas taped off. I'll just remove the gloves, peel the tape off, and resume sealing. Yeah. Right. After being on the skins for almost a week that tape decided that it liked its new home. I had bought some cheap stuff a few weeks earlier .... interesting how the more expensive tape has less adhesive. With freshly applied ProSeal in the area I wasn't really thrilled about using powerful solvents to aid in the tape removal. I ended up letting that batch dry overnight before I attacked the tape. I took me days to get that stuff off!
So, do I now want to quit my day job and find a position with a tank manufacturer as a ProSealer?
Uh, nope. But it is really not that bad. Instead of doing a tank in 3 sessions like the plans and the Orndorff video suggests, we broke the task up into smaller jobs. We have done around 6 sessions so far. The tanks are ready to have the rear baffles installed but I want to test them for leakage before completing them. I'm thinking of dunking them in a horse trough ... that ought to make for a Kodak moment.
What would I do differently next time? I'd spend the extra $2.00 a roll and get good tape. And I'd get it off of the aluminum as soon as possible.
Building an aircraft has, uh, forced me to buy a bunch of tools that I did not previously have. Now, my wife will tell you that I am a tool junkie. Absolutely not true! Well, there might be the odd instance where I have succumbed to the lure of something that might make my life easier in the shop, or that might prove useful for some undetermined task in the future, or might just be too cool to leave in the store. Mostly, though, my shop is filled with tools that I really need. Of course, it is also filled with tools that my friend Ken Foote claims are his. It might be true that they resided at one time in his shop, but I certainly have no clue as to how they found their way into mine ...
Anyway, it has been fun to use some simple tools that I have had for years but have used sparingly. Two that stand out in my mind are the plumb bob and the center-finding rule. The plumb bob has been invaluable in building the jigs. When I fly this airplane for the first time, my peace of mind will be enhanced knowing that the jigs were build true. I bought the center-finding rule for woodworking but used it rarely, mostly for locating the center of pieces to turn on the lathe. I have found it a great tool to use to lay out rivet patterns. The RV-8 kit is largely pre-punched, but the center-finding rule has been the tool of choice for those pieces where I lay out the rivet holes.
11/19/97: A cold, blustery day with heavy rain. A lousy day to fly, but a good day to pick up my RV-8 empennage kit from Van's. I am fortunate to live and work within a short drive of the North Plains headquarters. Mine is the 526th RV-8 empennage kit sold. I called Barbara on Monday to place the order and could hardly wait for today (Wednesday) to arrive! I walked in Van's door at 1:00 PM and found that the kit, uncrated, was on a cart and ready to go. I loaded it into my car and drove by the nursing home to share the excitement with my Mom. I took the trim tab in and she thought it was pretty cool.
Driving back to work and trying to keep the car on the road due to the heavy winds, it dawned on me that my airplane is in pieces and that is truly a good thing! It is fairly rare for an aircraft owner to be able to say that. The next several days saw the construction of a workbench, repair work on my air compressor, and the construction of an H-jig where the empennage parts will be assembled. The first actual work on airplane parts occurred on Thanksgiving day, 11/27/97.
When I first started my aircraft it was clear that it was going to be a tailwheel RV-8 because the nosewheel RV-8A was not yet available. When the -8A became an option (I was still doing the empennage) the dilemma began, and I had to start coming to terms with The Choice. Which one best suits my needs? Is there a cost difference? Is one cooler than the other? I would guess that the question of where the third wheel goes can probably generate more, uh, discussion amongst RV builders than any other. So, with the purchase of the fuselage kit looming in the near future, I must get past this obstacle.
I started by editing a file called pro.con, or some such clever title. It looked something like this:
better on rough fields (?) lower insurance, given my experience
costs slightly less better resale (?)
looks better
Some intangibles seemed like they needed to be added, like perhaps "what do real pilots fly". But making this decision based on what others might think seemed to be a bad idea. I needed to choose based on my needs and wants. Which airplane would most suit the kind of flying I will do? Since finances have kept the license non-current for the past 5 years or so, I needed to make some educated guesses. Having flown to Alaska twice with my friend Ken Foote, I knew that a trip north would be in the cards. And my sister lives in Pennsylvania. That seemed like an argument for a cross-country machine. But the type of local flying I like best involves short strips and relatively unpopulated areas. All of which reinforced the decision to build an RV because it does all of these things well. It just didn't help determine where the third wheel should go.
In the end, the loudest voice in my head (Oh, yeah. There are lots of voices.) was talking about the first flight. At this point in the building process I really want to make that flight myself. That may change, of course, but given the current financial situation it appears that I will not be able to get current for a year or more. In order to make that first flight I will need to be sharp, and a large part of that will be tied up with how comfortable I am with the gear arrangement. Just being current will not be enough. I have no doubt that I could become a competent tailwheel pilot with training and experience, but given that all of my pilot-in-command time is in nosewheel aircraft, I had an argument for wheel placement that made sense to me. I did not relish the extra time it would take to really get proficient with the wheel in back, so the fuselage kit was ordered for the 8A.
With the quandary over the gear behind me, it is on to the next set of decisions. What engine will I install? Which propeller? What goodies will go into the panel? How will the interior be appointed? What about a paint scheme? Will I paint it myself or have it professionally done? No rest for the gray matter ...
One of the things I like best about building an RV is figuring stuff out. At least I like it after I've figured out whatever it was I was trying to figure out. There have been lots of times that I've gotten stuck on the next procedure. Maybe I didn't understand the manual or the drawings, or maybe I was just nervous about the procedure itself. Further study has normally done the trick. In a few instances it has taken a phone call to Randall or an email to Van's before the light bulb got lit. I know that there is a ton of information out there; that other builders have dealt successfully with the same issues I am struggling with. I tend to use those resources as a last resort, both because of the satisfaction involved with figuring things out and an unwillingness to spend my life on the internet.
Sometimes it is clear what needs to be done next, but not so clear as to how to do it. For whatever reason, I had allowed myself to get all wrapped around the axle about bending the longerons. I've been ready to bend them for a week but hadn't actually done it, usually an indication that I'm not yet comfortable with a procedure. But last night my friend Ken came over as he does most every Tuesday evening. I sucked it up and got ready to bend the lower longerons.
On the 8A there are two bends to make on each of the upper longerons. The plans suggest putting each longeron into a vice and bending them with the aid of a heavy and soft hammer. It was not clear how we were going to know when the right bend was applied. Maybe we'd hang a plumb bob to mark the starting point. I had previously watched the Orndorff video and noted his suggestion of clamping both longerons in the vice and then bending one at a time. The distance between the ends could be measured, with bending continuing until the distance was correct per the plans. This seemed like a great idea until we actually put the longerons into the vice. There was 8 feet or so of each longeron extending beyond the vice waiting to be bent, and there was already a gap between the ends.
It dawned on us that in the fuselage jig we had a flat and plumb surface to work on. We snapped a chalk line across the top of the bulkhead supports and clamped both longerons along this line. With one longeron clamped along its entire length and the two longerons clamped firmly together and to the jig at the bend point, we could then bend them one at a time and know that the jig would help to insure that the bend occurred in one plane only. Both bends were performed on the jig and the results appear to be good.
Such instances of "figuring things out" have become commonplace during the journey of building this aircraft. I'm sure that there are lots of ways to get the longerons to fit well, but progress was halted until I came up with a procedure I was happy with. Kicking a problem back and forth with Ken and my wife Diane and coming up with a solution is really satisfying and helps to keep the dream of putting this airplane in the air alive.
Which stands, of course, for Boys Night Out. It has become almost as eagerly awaited as Friday evenings, which usually finds Diane and myself at a local Mexican restaurant celebrating the end of the week with a margarita. Or perhaps two.
When I started my RV-8A it was clear that I would not be one of those builders that fly his or her completed aircraft within a couple of years. Family and house matters would come first (Yes, dear. Right away, dear.), and the normal ebb and flow of schedule crunches with my work as an engineer for a local high-tech company would mean that the project would get the time that was left over. I figured it would take me about 4 years to build the airplane. My boss knows to double any schedule estimate that I make, and at this point an 8-year build cycle appears to be close to what I am on.
During the first 3 years of the project, progress was very cyclic. For weeks on end I would make really good progress, and then for another period of weeks or months I would make almost no progress. This is why I now so eagerly await Tuesday night. For the past 6 months or so, my friend Ken Foote has come over on Tuesday evenings and worked the bucking bar or handled the rivet gun or commiserated on the building of the fuselage jig. Besides being a pleasant way to spend an evening, it helped to promote steady progress on the airplane. It is really easy to get discouraged when thinking about how much work is left to do before the airplane can fly. But thinking about the very next thing to do is not difficult at all: prime the pieces for the front seat belt and rivet them together. Any big project is made up of a whole bunch of smaller ones. Focusing on a more easily accomplished goal keeps me from losing confidence in my ability to accomplish the big one.
With a regularly scheduled work night, progress has been much steadier. Perhaps I make an extra effort during the week to insure that we have something to rivet for the next BNO. Or maybe I'm stuck on the next procedure and need another set of eyes to set me straight. Either way, since Ken started coming over for BNO, there have been no long pauses in construction.
During some of these evenings we attempt to re-invent the rules of geometry. Take for example the night we were finishing the fuselage jig and had just gotten it square. During the process of bolting the jig to the floor it got out of square by about 3/16" when measuring the diagonals. We spent hours working out clever solutions that would not require me to unbolt the jig from the floor. Of course we ended up unbolting it from the floor and gently persuading it into position with a large hammer.
On another evening I got some much-needed dual on using my HVLP gun that I have been shooting primer with. Most evenings contain a lot of good-natured ribbing and a great meal with Diane, who is always there to solve problems that Ken and I get stuck on. She is uncommonly good at this ... the ideas she had for testing our fuel tanks are probably worth a story by themselves.
As the fuselage begins to take shape, I look forward to each BNO and the completion of one more small goal. Some day I will actually fly this airplane, and it will happen because of the support of family and friends during the accomplishment of many small steps along the way.
Here it is, 5 and a half years after starting my RV-8A project, and the first flight is still a long ways off. How can that be? Fortune has smiled on me: Diane and I have been able to purchase a house on an airstrip, Diane has a great job as a complex case manager for a large insurance company, and I've been able to stay employed (knock on simulated wood-grain) through the worst downturn the electronics industry has ever experienced. So, what's the deal?
Well, three moves since starting the project haven't helped. And the fact that my middle name is not "Speedy" is certainly a factor. But the real culprits have got to be the animals, all of whom were, ah, inherited. Three four-legged creatures allow us to live in our home with them, and each of them in turn seems to be doing all they can to impede the progress on the airplane.
Nugget is a 9-year old male Cocker Spaniel who joined the household when Diane and I were married. That was in house #3. Born on the 4th of July, this dog thinks his patriotic duty is to protect his humans from, well, human food. To that end, any food left within this dog's reach is at risk. Leave something edible unguarded on the table? Consider it gone. Being a wily but rather short critter, Nugget will push a chair around until he has a path to the tabletop. So the simple act of walking out to work on the airplane gets interrupted by the need to boot a dog off the table and clean up the butter he has smeared around or refill the salt shaker because it has been emptied into a pile with a perfect paw print in the middle.
McKinley is a 5-year-old female Husky-Samoyed mix, insanely jealous of Diane. She chews up sheets, shoes, clothes, cookbooks, and anything else that belongs to Diane. This ball of fur was a puppy when the project started back at house #1. That poor house suffered from:
McKinley chewing through the telephone cable.
McKinley chewing through the video cable.
McKinley chewing through the automatic sprinkler control wires.
McKinley chewing a hole in the hot tub cover.
McKinley chewing the corners off of the deck steps.
McKinley chewing holes in the house siding.
Does anyone see a pattern here? Before I could work on the Horizontal Stabilizer I had to patch up some McKinley-created hole. In house #2 McKinley was relegated to an abandoned pigpen. Before moving into house #3 I built a dog run in back of the shop, and prior to putting McKinley into her new home I put up an electric fence. Sadly, I was not able to witness the first encounter between dog and fence.
Leroy is the last, but most definitely not the least of the 4-legged crowd. Here is a 6-toed cat who seems to think that if he eats enough he'll be able to grow a 7th toe and make it into the Guinness Book of World Records. This cat will eat anything. Cat food, dog food, people food, or fish food. Limiting the food in his dish doesn't seem to do any good. At house #3, Leroy would make the rounds of the neighborhood, consuming whatever he might find appetizing. The fact that it might be food set out for other neighborhood pets didn't bother him at all. Leroy was no doubt mad at us for moving to house #4 because he lost all that free food around house #3. He lost no time in showing us who the boss is at house #4. And that boss would be the cat. As in Leroy the cat. As in the cat who hasn't missed a whole lot of dinners. To say that Leroy has a reasonably large girth would be a mild understatement.
How does having a cat as a boss impact the airplane project? I was changing shoes after work one night, preparing to work on the fuselage. And the heater register meowed at me. Honest! Diane and I removed the register so we could see down into the ductwork, and sure enough, every so often it would shake around and issue a forlorn cat noise. Sounded a whole lot like Leroy. Which of course it was. He was stuck somewhere in there, too portly to move. He was mostly quiet except for when the heater came on and singed his backside. All of which raised two interesting questions.
1.How was I going to get him out of there?
2.And, how the hell did he get there in the first place??
Seemed like question #1 was the top priority. Since we couldn't actually see Leroy from either of the registers, there weren't many alternatives to going under the house and opening up the ductwork somewhere. Which didn't sound like a lot of fun, given that:
1.Our house sits on relatively flat ground,
2.We live in Oregon, and
3.It's been raining a lot.
Diane bailed at this point, being the intelligent woman that she is and knowing the likely outcome of any combination involving her husband and crawlspace work. She used some flimsy excuse like needing to get Nugget to an appointment with the vet. So I marched past the fuselage (remember the airplane?) and out to the crawlspace entry, ready to rescue a kitty.
I'm not a small person, so award-winning video was probably missed each time I contorted my way into the crawlspace. Happily, the bulb in the trouble light that I took underneath on the first trip lasted as long as it took to get far enough in for it to get dark. OK. That was a dry run. Well, not so dry at that. Back out to discover that I didn't have any heavy-duty bulbs for the trouble light. Replaced the bulb with a standard 60 watt household bulb. More on that later. Trip #2 resulted in some study of the duct work, a lot of tapping, and no response from a kitty. Out of the hole, into the garage, and off with the ever so slightly muddy shoes. Turn on the heater and check for airflow out of the registers in the master bedroom while listening to a rather pissed-off cat. Noted good airflow from one register and none from the other. Heater off, back out to the shop to get a Phillips screwdriver, and then back underneath with a suspicion of where said kitty might be. Crawl back out (it is raining now), walk around to the shop and get the straight screwdriver that I need. Back underneath, crawl over to a "Y" in the ductwork and begin to pull the duct tape off of the joints. That would be the point where I dropped the trouble light and the light duty filament broke. It is possible that some colorful metaphors came into play at this point. Back out to get another bulb, back underneath to pull the ductwork apart at the "Y", and the south half of a kitty becomes visible. Leroy did a fair imitation of a club dancer before he fell backwards on his butt.
And the first thing he wants to do? Saunter over to the ductwork now lying on the ground and try to crawl back in. Uh, words were exchanged between the human and the cat. I won the cat-toss competition with a fairly good throw under the circumstances. Would have been better if the crawl space was deeper. Could have gotten more arch. As it was, Leroy landed close to the crawl-space entrance. He stayed there and observed the entire ductwork reconnect effort, no doubt amused at the rather blue and one-sided conversation between human and sheet metal.
The airplane is at a really neat stage right now. The empennage is being attached and it is beginning to look a lot like a real aircraft. I'm itching to get out there and attach the elevators to the two control sticks via the elevator pushrods. I'll get to that really soon! But first I have to fix a Leroy-sized hole in the ductwork somewhere. And then I need to find the forward control stick that McKinley has absconded with. And what is that I see on the table?
.Back in the 1800's health care was a whole lot simpler. No matter if your ailment was a bad tooth, a bunion or female complaints, Dr. Daniel's Magic Snake Oil contained that special ingredient that would ease your pain. Today the medical world has become a much more complicated place. Specialization is the order of the day, and you can't watch TV without hearing from some drug company about this new cure or that new pill. And a lot of these ads don't even tell you what ailment the product is intended to combat! Like we are all going to rush off to our doctors to ask about the latest pill decorated with cool stripes! It all just makes me want to puke. Why does life have to be so complicated? Why can't we go back to a simpler day?
Well, my friends, I'm happy to report that we can! Somewhat akin to Aromatherapy in its ability to cure all, I give you Alumatherapy, a treatment dedicated to the notion that everything will get better if you work with aluminum. Need a vent for your frustrations? Drill a hole in aluminum. Need to add structure to your life? Put a rivet in that hole and squeeze it. See how simple that is?
Yup, Alumatherapy is here. All you have to do is go out to the shop, garage, carport or living room and work with this marvelous stuff. Don't have any of it available? Not sure what to do with it when you get it? Never fear, because your friends at Van's Aircraft have a complete, personalized, and self-directed treatment program waiting just for you. And if you complete the entire program you end up with the primary tool for the maintenance protocol, Aerotherapy. When you have advanced to this level of care you can simply elevate yourself above whatever might be causing you stress. And this is definitely where you want to be. I have actually spoken to several folks currently on the Aerotherapy protocol and I can state that the only malady common to them appears to be a certain difficulty keeping their feet on the ground (or their heads out of the clouds) and the presence of this funny "grin".
Unsure if Aerotherapy is really the way you want to go? Don't worry! Call (503)678-6545, speak with Dr. VanGrunsven and ask him if Alumatherapy and Aerotherapy are right for you. Heck, if you visit his office he'll even give you a free sample. Side effects of the treatment are generally mild and range from an increased risk of fingertip cuts during Alumatherapy to occasional facial discoloration (green appears to be a common color) during Aerotherapy.
Be aware, though, that the "free" sample can prove irresistible. It certainly was to me ... you may want to go prepared to start Alumatherapy immediately. You should also be warned that the health insurance companies do not yet cover this treatment, perhaps because there is some evidence to suggest that the cure may be addictive. Some folks have been known to progress all the way through Alumatherapy to Aerotherapy, only to regress and start all over again. Also note that it is not wise to mix the old and new cures. If you still rely on an occasional touch of Dr. Daniel's elixir you should delay sessions of Alumatherapy and especially Aerotherapy in order to avoid adverse interactions between these treatments.
Don't let any of this discourage you, though. There are a lot of support groups out there to help you out as you go through these therapies. Local groups of individuals on Alumatherapy can be found around the world (Hello. My name is Ray, and I'm an alumaholic.). There are even huge national gatherings of individuals partaking of Aerotherapy.
Remember, regardless of the claims you will hear from the proponents of Composotherapy or other such cures, Dr. VanGrunsven and his staff provide the most successful treatment plan of its kind in the world.
