Building an RV12

AdamZ

AdamZ

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
Messages
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Location
Montgomery County PA
Display Name
Display name:
Adam Zucker
Finally got involved with a build! Building an RV12 with some folks over at Wings. The project is designed to mentor kids, so I'm doing it with my 14 year old nephew. It pretty cool to watch the plane come together and I think along the way, I'm learning as much as my nephew.

Mike Schultz from POA is involved too.

Spent yesterday assembling the spar carrythru receiver and the baggage compartment floor. Getting into some of those spaces to pull rivets is certainly a challenge.

Looking forward to flying it when we're done
 

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Or perhaps not. Photos must be too big
 

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How long have they been working on it? Looks like it's coming together nicely. No priming of the parts before assembly?
 
No overhead breaks allowed! :no: :no: :no:
 
LDJones said:
How long have they been working on it? Looks like it's coming together nicely. No priming of the parts before assembly?
Click to expand...

Priming is optional. I primed bare metal and parts the plans call to be made. All of the skins, and ribs are alclad coated. Very little priming is needed. Goes together fast.

Adam, I built a -12 also. Very fun, and challenging project. Very rewarding.

Tip of the day. :D Get that blue plastic of death off ASAP! Unless you are going to polish the bare aluminum instead of paint. It is much harder to get off later than now. Hair dryer works great. ;)

Also, fill the pulled rivets with Super fill. Makes them look like solid rivets after paint! Really a nice prep mod. I used a farm syringe with a #16 horse needle with the end ground off. Use it like a caulking gun and fill each hole from the bottom. Allow to cure for a day or two and then use a 90 degree die grinder with a 2" used fine sanding disc to remove excess material. Would take no time at all with all the kids helping.
 
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Geico266 said:
Also, fill the pulled rivets with Super fill. Makes them look like solid rivets after paint! Really a nice prep mod. I used a farm syringe with a #16 horse needle with the end ground off. Use it like a caulking gun and fill each hole from the bottom. Allow to cure for a day or two and then use a 90 degree die grinder with a 2" used fine sanding disc to remove excess material. Would take no time at all with all the kids helping.
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But what about the excess weight?!? :yikes: :lol:
 
LDJones said:
How long have they been working on it? Looks like it's coming together nicely. No priming of the parts before assembly?
Click to expand...

Been at it for a couple of months. Some of the empange was already done as it was purchased from someone who could not conintue the project.

Geico266 said:
Priming is optional. I primed bare metal and parts the plans call to be made. All of the skins, and ribs are alclad coated. Very little priming is needed. Goes together fast.

Adam, I built a -12 also. Very fun, and challenging project. Very rewarding.

Tip of the day. :D Get that blue plastic of death off ASAP! Unless you are going to polish the bare aluminum instead of paint. It is much harder to get off later than now. Hair dryer works great. ;)

Also, fill the pulled rivets with Super fill. Makes them look like solid rivets after paint! Really a nice prep mod. I used a farm syringe with a #16 horse needle with the end ground off. Use it like a caulking gun and fill each hole from the bottom. Allow to cure for a day or two and then use a 90 degree die grinder with a 2" used fine sanding disc to remove excess material. Would take no time at all with all the kids helping.
Click to expand...

Larry we learned that about the blue plastic that had been on the wing skins for a long time. Brutal. A hair dryer is the way to go. Also good tip on the pull rivets.

I'm concerned about the part of the build that involves sytems. Its not as sexy as the wings so I'm hoping we can keep the kids attention.
 
that's cool. so who keeps the plane when it's finished? I'm not familiar with the wings program.
 
tmyers said:
The RV kits look so clean to work with. Looks like a lot of fun.
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It really is, at least all the aluminum work is. No jigging, little cutting, just assembly and lots of rivets.

The fiberglass is another story but I'm thinking there's little of that on the '12.

Don't prime anything the plans don't suggest priming. Rip the blue stuff off as soon as you start working on a part, follow the plans and fly the plane!
 
Adam hard at work!
 

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oldShar said:
Does the blood rush to your head when you work like this?
Does the environment have a red-ish tinge to things?


:D
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This is an LSA. He must build it exactly to the plans to be LSA compliant. Don't anyone tell him he has the plans upside down. :rofl:
 
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Geico266 said:
This is an LSA. He must built it exactly to the plans to be LSA compliant. Don't anyone tell him he has the plans upside down. :rofl:
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For some reason they flipped Adam when I uploaded from the iPad? By spring he should be doing zoom climbs.
 

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Bill Watson said:
It really is, at least all the aluminum work is. No jigging, little cutting, just assembly and lots of rivets.

The fiberglass is another story but I'm thinking there's little of that on the '12.

Don't prime anything the plans don't suggest priming. Rip the blue stuff off as soon as you start working on a part, follow the plans and fly the plane!
Click to expand...

I was dreading the fiberglass work until I got started doing it. It is all about preparation before starting. Laying everything out and having the proper supplies and tools. It is actually quite fascinating and fun to build a structure out of wet fiberglass strips and building it up and smoothing it out. It is messy, and dusty when sanding, but manageable. I loved every minute of it. :D

One thing I found when building was projects I thought would be easy would kick my ass, while things I worried about usually went smooth.

The nice thing about building RVs is the support from the company and VAF. It is amazing.
 
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As of yesterday the photo in my first post has turned into this!. Really feel like things are starting to progress. Once the tail, empanage and wings were done it felt like progress was measured in millimeters. I can now picture in my mind that it is a part of an airplane. Its a great learning process.
 

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Lookin good!

Wait til you have to beat the longerons. Worst job of the whole plane, but I didn't preload them like you are suppose to. :redface:
 
Here is the latest progress. We finally got the firewall attached this weekend, so we basically have the bottom section of the cabin and luggage area done and side skins are next then attach to the empennage. There were here from 3 to 6 of us working on Saturday with a lot of 2 man jobs so we all spent a bit of time supervising.:wink2:

We also shaped some longerons that go on top of the side walls that the canopy rests on. That was a treat. They were two sets of angle irons ( aluminum) that we had to splay at one end to a specific degree then twist to make the tops flat with the unsplayed part THEN bend a good section of the part and twist/bend again so the top was flat. I think the technical term is "tweaking". Lots of progress though.
 

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AdamZ said:
Here is the latest progress. We finally got the firewall attached this weekend, so we basically have the bottom section of the cabin and luggage area done and side skins are next then attach to the empennage. There were here from 3 to 6 of us working on Saturday with a lot of 2 man jobs so we all spent a bit of time supervising.:wink2:

We also shaped some longerons that go on top of the side walls that the canopy rests on. That was a treat. They were two sets of angle irons ( aluminum) that we had to splay at one end to a specific degree then twist to make the tops flat with the unsplayed part THEN bend a good section of the part and twist/bend again so the top was flat. I think the technical term is "tweaking". Lots of progress though.
Click to expand...

A really cool project! I'll have to drop in some time and take a look-see - if the weather ever improves!!

Gary
 
Geico266 said:
I was dreading the fiberglass work until I got started doing it. It is all about preparation before starting. Laying everything outsand having the proper supplies and tools. It is actually quite fascinating and fun to build a structure out of wet fiberglass strips and building it up and smoothing it out. It is messy, and dusty when sanding, but manageable. I loved every minute of it. :D

One thing I found when building was projects I thought would be easy would kick my ass, while things I worried about usually went smooth.

The nice thing about building RVs is the support from the company and VAF. It is amazing.
Click to expand...
Funny thing about the FG work - I too ended up enjoying it and went so far as to do my own molds for a center console project after my '10 was flying. Still fooling around with composites as we speak. When I first fooled around with composites over 40 years ago on model airplanes, we were fishing in the dark so to speak since we lacked the Web resources.

Ditto on the hard being easy etc.

Web support is great - VAF, Matronics, individual builder sites, etc. Vans support for the building process was hit and miss at the time. May be better now but it never really mattered. The kits and the RV10 design are fantastic.
 
Now it is really starting to resemble an airplane. Empanage and fuselage are attached.
 

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Geico266 said:
Adam, what are your impressions of the kit so far?
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Larry, not sure how to gauge it because I've never been involved in a build before, but I guess I'd say there are a hell of a lot of pop rivets. Apparently it was designed that way to make it an easier build. The squeeze rivets are a pretty slow process. The rivets where we had to use a bucking bar, well lets just say I've learned what a smiling rivet is and how to drill them out LOL.

Generally things are straight forward enough but there are times where we get to an instruction and say "huh that doesn't make any sense!" or " Funny, the plans show that part 134D17-R has an extra hole that mine does not have" I recall one time where we were trying to make a connection in the fuel line in the aft of the cabin area under the floor there were a lot of cut knuckles and colorful language because it would have made sense to make the connection before we riveted down the floor. We could not understand why the engineers did it that way so we just chalked it up to the engineers deciding the screw with the builder.

All in all I'd say its a very buildable plane. Organization of parts and rivets is crucial and an investment in reliable tools is obviously important. So to sum it up I'd say its a good plane for someones first build. At least for me its a great learning process. Also Key for me is that I'm participating in the build with others. I'm not sure its something I'd do on my own as I'm a pretty social person. What I find really cool is the rigidity that comes once the parts are riveted together. On their own they are pretty flimsy but once you put them together they really gain some strength. There is also a lot of astonishment in realizing just whats actually holding the thing together especially the wings.

All in all its a great experience.

LDJones said:
You're probably close to being able to sit in it and make airplane noises! :D
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Ha I was just saying that yesterday.
 
Wow .... looking great, Adam.
I've been impressed with the RV-12 since seeing how nice Larry's came
out. I stopped by their booth at S&F to look at them. I would have built one but I couldn't afford that much, so I went with a Sonex .. also a nice plane for the money.

RT
 
That looks like so much fun! Ever since I went to my first Sun-n-Fun back in the early 80's and then Oshkosh, I have loved home builts. I just knew with my work situation and family responsibilities it would be tough to committ the time required to build a plane. Doing a group project like this is a great way to go. I know the kids must be learning a lot too. The RV looks like it is coming along very nice. I'm looking forward to future updates to this thread.
 
Figured I'd update you all with the progress of the RV12 build.

Engine is hung not yet connected but attached and now there is lots and lots of internal wiring to do. Thankfully the school kids helping are a bit more flexible and can get into the tighter spaces that the wiring needs to get to than some of the adults.
 

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