Monthly Archives: February 2016

This week focused on finishing the wire runs under the rear seat panel and finalizing the left inspection ports for the antenna/steps.

The edges of the rear seat panel are normally hidden behind a removable side cover.  This seemed like an excellent location for plunging conduit runs under the seat panel (which will eventually be permanently attached with pop rivets).

As with all additional hole in the plane, a reinforcement plate was fabricated the help hold the 5/8″ black corrugated conduit.  Here shows the plate clecoed in position.

This next series shows a repeat of the inspection port fabrication, this time on the left side near the baggage door opening.

Layout the backer described in previous posts. Drill some pilot holes, then nibble a rough opening followed by hand filing and scotchbrite smoothing.

First a picture of the rough outline, then showing smoothed, primed and ready for installation.

Voila.  This photo shows completed floor panels clecoed in position.  All the fabricated wire runs and inspection ports have been completed.  After months of working on customized elements for my particular configurations, I should soon be getting back to the standard plans.  Next up will be layouts of the baggage compartment panels.

Cutting pass through holes for 5/8″ conduit under the rear seat panels is no easy chore. With the quickbuild kit, the ribs are already riveted into position about 4″ apart.  Getting a large Unibit into proper alignement is impossible.  My method was use a right-angle pneumatic drill attachment to start a small pilot hole, then enlarge with a hand file to a size big enough to accommodate a knock-out set.

The set needs a 1/2′ pilot hole, then the first punch-out occurs by tightened the 11/16″ driving screw.  On the right is the rough opening for 3 conduit runs.

This shows the full circle first cut, then subsequent half-moon chunks taken out progressive to make the elongated opening for the conduits.

On the left side I made the backing plate first, then used is as a template to serve as a guide.

The second opening turned out much cleaner than the first.  Of course this will not be visible to anyone after the seat panel is pop riveted closed.

The pop rivet has a swivel head, but still there was barely enough room to operate. Slight flexing of both ribs was required to reach the bottom holes.

Final holes under the baggage floor have nylon grommets or conduit attachment brackets.

After completing the oak prototype, a number of items were ordered for the final version. Blocks of acetal copolymer, 3/4″ aluminum bar, 5/8″ end mill, wiggler, some machines screw drills of various sizes, and a set of 3/16″ taps arrived for work on some precision equipment. My friend Tal is also building an RV10, so we decided to both use the same bracket design.  A few trips to another friends shop and access to milling machines and lathes was in order.

We used Tal’s bracket for the initial work, which started with using the lathe to round a 3/4″ aluminum rod down to 5/8″ to match the end mill (more on that later).  The lathe had fine adjustments down to 0.001″ and we came within a few thousandths of the mill diameter.

Next was milling the acetal block for the antenna rods. Here a wiggler is used to precisely measure the center points of the end mill holes.

This shows the block and the antenna rod matched together – near perfect for a pair of amateurs.

Now for drilling and tapping the rods for the actual antennas themselves. Note the special holding pieces in the vice I had gotten from Rich.

==================== February 6

Now that Tal’s bracket was completed, on to my shop for similar work. The rods had been made on the lathe beforehand, by shaping the acetal had to be done with my drill press.  This forced a slightly different approach than using the precision mill.

Here is the raw block with the planned outcome.

While not as accurate as the mill, my drill press is pretty good.  Using micrometers and the drill press laser guide, I was able to get close to the ideal dimensions on the rod holes on the side faces.

The through holes and corners were next. Again dimensions came out good. Note this was achieved using the X-Y drill vice also obtained from Rich from the estate sale previously mentioned.

The band saw and cutting fence were used to get the rough outer dimensions of the block.  A bit work on the bench sander and the sharp edges rounded nicely.

Drill the end and top holes.

Close to done.