| April 28, 2005 ~ |
I ordered the Empennage for the RV-8a from Vans, they only take faxes so off it went. The hardest part of the whole ordering process was the fact that there is a two hour time difference and I was a basket case by the time they opened. I couldn't make up my mind if Baron was going to be happy or disappointed that he hadn't been the one to order it. |
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I also ordered the RV-8 Empennage building DVD from GeoBeck Inc. (http://www.fly-gbi.com/), they have the video on DVD now, so we can take it into the garage on the laptop. |
| May 3, 2005 ~ |
I received the e-mail notification from FedEx that the package had shipped. YIPPEE!!! No turning back now. |
| May 4, 2005 ~ |
The Empennage is delivered! I race home to get it and of course take some photos. |
| May 4, 2005 ~ |
That night I surprised Baron with the kit, considering it wouldn't be possible for me to hide two boxes that size. |
| May 5, 2005 ~ |
We had taken all the boxes to the garage and decided to go out and start organizing. |
| May 6, 2005 ~ |
Nothing to report so far, we don't have the DVD yet or the tools, so we are in a holding pattern. :~) That is all.... |
| May 7, 2005 ~ |
Well as usual the trip to Lowe's got TOTALLY out of hand, but some building did occur, sort of. |
| May 8, 2005 ~ |
We have officially had our first mistake, and I am sure not our first. |
| May 9, 2005 ~ |
I am ordering more tools today, but don't have the bulk of our stuff (like the darn clecos) yet. |
| May 10, 2005 ~ |
TOOLS! Need I say more? |
| May 11, 2005 ~ |
All I can say about Avery Tools is WOW ! It took them less than 24 hours to get our tools to us. Ok, I know we are only in Oklahoma and they are in Texas but still impressive. I am going to let Baron open the box, and then I will get photos. (OK I STILL haven't been able to get photos of all the pieces (May 17, 2005) but I do have a picture of the inventory list, I hope that will satisfy y'all for now. ) |
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Since we have the tools we finally started getting everything together.
A ton of pictures in this one. |
| May 12, 2005 ~ |
We took the plastic of the first pieces and started deburring and more deburring. |
| May 13, 2005 ~ |
We got all the pieces together and did the 6 degree bend (Baron said he would do the descriptions for this page eventually since to get the 6 deg. we had to break out the Algebra books) |
| May 14, 2005 ~ |
We started getting pieces primed. |
| May 14-17, 2005 |
Baron's check ride is coming up so he is hitting the books really hard right now. |
| May 21, 2005 ~ |
We had to order more clecos and other misc. supplies that we didn't get get in our first order so we finally got the stab put together. |
| May 25, 2005 ~ |
Baron passed his check ride and we finally got the Hand Squeezers. |
| May 28, 2005 ~ |
We did our first big batch of riveting! |
| May 29, 2005 ~ |
We did a lot of dimpling and cleaning of parts to get ready to prime. |
| May 30, 2005 ~ |
Assembly of the spar. |
| May 31, 2005 ~ |
People in the RV community are such wonderful people. Dan Checkoway (http://www.rvproject.com) sent me an e-mail suggesting that we might like using a different tool to deburr. |
| June 1, 2005 ~ |
Wow, we have almost been building for a whole month...I was able to get a picture of our Aircraft Tool order finally.
No new airplane news but HERE is something for you dog lovers. |
| June 5, 2005 ~ |
Check rides and such have to come first, but here are some cool storm photos. |
| June 11, 5005 ~ |
It was really hard to wait to do anything to the plane, but we finally were able to get some skin stuff done, we got the plastic off and the holes ready. |
| June 12, 2005 ~ |
Now that we have the skins all prepped and ready to go we finally started the riveting! |
| June 13, 2005 ~ |
We finished one side! |
| June 14, 2005 ~ |
Now we get to start on the OTHER side. |
| June 15, 2005 ~ |
More right side work, well not really we really just wanted to see what the H-Stab would look like all the way done. |
| June 18, 2005 ~ |
We didn't get any building done, but we did get a new bumper for our truck. |
| June 19, 2005 ~ |
I hate to tell you this but Baron finished the H-Stab while I was at work, so I have no photos of that...but here is the first part of the V-Stab. |
| June 20, 2005 ~ |
We finally got started on the V_Stab! |
It is now July 19th and I haven't updated the site for over a month, I am SO SORRY!!!!! The Air Force really dictates you life, if you have a test to study for the plane HAS to come second. :~(
Here are the entries that SHOULD have been posted long ago. |
| July 12, 2005 ~ |
We finally were able to start building again! |
| July 13, 2005 ~ |
Finished one more! |
| July 14, 2005 ~ |
We tried to get the spars at least attached, Baron has a BIG AF test coming so we won't be able to build until at least July 19th. |
| July 20, 2005 ~ |
Well we were back to building almost on the 19th. |
| July 23. 2005 ~ |
Our friend Jack is visiting from Texas so he helped. |
| July 24, 2005 ~ |
Jack was such a huge help. |
| Back in June we got another few shipments of tools and misc. stuff (like primer) and I haven't been able to get pictures of all of it. I did manage to get a couple of pictures of our rivet guides and how they work HERE. |
| July 29, 2005 ~ |
This page might take a while to load I thought the picture quality was more important.
When we were checking our parts closely we found a crack, we took it to our friend and advisor (he builds RVs for people professionally) he said it would be OK and it was typical for this piece. |
| July 30, 2005 ~ |
Here are some more miscellaneous photos I need to eventually place in their right chronological place.
This includes photos of the FULLY ASSEMBLED (I think for the most part) rudder! |
| July 31, 2005 ~ |
We have started cutting pieces for the ribs.....maybe |
| August 7, 2005 ~ |
A new month can only mean one thing .......... starting a new part. |
| August 8, 2005 ~ |
Dimpling inside can be nice, there is A/C after all, but there are other dangers to self and plane pieces. |
| August 9, 2005 ~ |
Trim Tab installation!!! This will take a LONG time to load there are a ton of pictures. |
| September 19, 2005 ~ |
Rest assured you haven't missed anything. Baron graduated from pilot training and we have had NO TIME to work on any part of the plane. We will be moving in the next few months, so I have no way of knowing when we will get back to building.
We WILL keep this up to date as we start building again. :~) |
| July 3, 2006 |
Well the "moving in the next four months," comment from above has really been true. It is now July 3, 2006 and we will be heading to Wichita, KS in the next few weeks. Anyone who has been in the military or knows about the military doesn't need explanations of how your plans are always changing. =)
The BIG news I have is that we have changed our minds from an RV-8a to an RV-8! To go along with this news I have changed our web site to its new location(s) of www.rv-8.org and www.rv-8.info. Hopefully we will be ordering the Wings and/or Fuselage in the next few months. I wouldn't hold your breath on that....but we are hoping!
Cheers and HAPPY 4th!!!!
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| January 19, 2007 |
We have been in Wichita for 4 months now with no real news to tell on the RV-8......well except for one LITTLE thing. I ordered the Wings TODAY! YIPPEE!!!!!
Wait a second, why am I so excited....I will probably only be seeing Baron in the garage for the next year now....oh well!!!
THE WINGS ARE ORDERED!!! |
