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A Word of Caution on the Elevators
WARNING: READ THIS POST BEFORE INSTALLING THE FOAM RIBS. The elevators have been an exercise in patience (I’ll expand on that in a later post). I’m 69.5 hours in and all that’s left to do is roll and close the…
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Changing up the Primer Game
Nothing is as hotly-debated in the amateur homebuilt world as to whether or not to prime. In fact, my very first call to the Vans builder support line was about whether or not to prime, and what primer to use.…
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Slow Progress is Progress
For various reasons I haven’t had a whole lot of time to dedicate to building the past couple of weeks, but I have gotten a little bit accomplished. My last update ended with me deciding to fabricate a spacer for…
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The Elevators Begin!
I’ve been home this week for professional training so I’ve been a little closer to the garage which has allowed me to sneak in a few minutes when I break for lunch every day. It also means that I’m that…
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Horizontal Stabilizer is Complete!
I have been terrible about updating the build log, but hopefully that stops with this post! Tonight, after one month and one day, I finished the horizontal stabilizer. Not as quickly as I would have expected, but the month of…
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Rudder Assembly
This post is largely a back-fill from memory a month after completion of the rudder. I got wrapped up in the build and didn’t take many notes or pictures of the vertical stabilizer or rudder, so I’ll just hit the…
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I Don’t Know What I’m Doing
W. Edwards Deming is credited with the phrase: “If you can’t describe what you’re doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” Well, when it comes to building an airplane I don’t know what I’m doing. I do…
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Well…poop
This is a page dedicated to all of the missteps, goof-ups, and downright stupidity that comes at the hands of my feeble attempt at building an airplane. May 19, 2019 Today I dimpled the Vertical Stabilizer skin where there was…
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Rivets and Hardware and Skins, Oh My!
The empennage kit arrived today and man, oh man…das a lot of parts! Van’s really does an incredible job of packing a lot of parts and pieces into a relatively small 115″ crate, but I take minor issue with one…
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Shop Setup: Air Compressor and Dryer
As have many other builders, I am choosing to build the majority of this RV-14A in my shop (otherwise known as my two-car garage) rather than a hangar. The reason for this decision is based largely on necessity and –…
