Wendell Folks RV-8 Project - Page 2.

September 6, 2005:  Wendell learned about dimpling and using the Scotchbrite wheel to smooth the edges of the wing skins.   Before he put the skins on the wheel, he used my soldering iron to remove the blue plastic around the rivet holes along the edges and across the center sections of the horizontal stabilizer skins.  (The camera flash lit up the tail light reflectors on his SUV.)

Here is the first HS skin after scuffing the inner surface with a Scotchbrite pad then cleaning away the rolling mill oil with a solvent.  It is the first skin that he has prepared for priming. 

After cleaning the skins, he learned how to dimple using the squeezer, and now the C-frame.

September 14, 2005:   Today I gave Wendell some pointers on easy use of "tin snips" on the rudder stiffeners.

It was a little awkward for him to do at first, but he finally got the hang of it and I went off to reconnect my right fuel tank sensors and finish putting my wing fairing back in place.  He started to cleco the finished parts to the rudder skin in preparation for match-drilling them together.

When all the stiffeners were in place, we put the skin on the rudder skeleton and added the rudder bottom cap attach strips as you see below.

The last shot of the day shows Wendell match-drilling the skins to the stiffeners and the skeleton.  After this was done, the lead weight for the rudder was prepared and the holes in the counter-balance rib were drilled and dimpled as needed.

Wendell said he came out to the shop around 6 AM this morning to finish preparing the inside surfaces of the rudder and elevator skins for today's lessons and assembly steps.  It was after 5 PM when we put away all the tools and sat down for a visit and some conversation from his air strip partner Jim.  At around 6:30 PM, the shop was closed and we all called it a day!

September 20, 2005:   Wendell is getting closer to primer time.  The focus today was elevators.   He needed to trim the thin end of the stiffeners to allow for the the folding of the trailing edge of the elevator skin.  Other than that, his skills are improving.   As for me, I will feel I have done my job if the quality of his airplane can avoid the minor mistakes I made at this point in my RV-9A project.