Scott's RV-14 Build

Baffling Progressing

I've been living in my garage the past 6 days since the wife is out of town. In that time, I've turned small parts into bigger parts and have most of the baffling structure competed. A fair amount of time is spent prepping the parts and then figuring out the best way to secure and rivet them. The structures are relatively flimsy and awkwardly shaped making it hard to just clamp it to my workbench. To rivet them they need to be held in a fixed and rigid manner that's also accessible for my squeezer or rivet gun. Many -4 rivets are used, and the resulting higher gun pressures needed can bend the structures if one is not careful. Because of rivet accessibility I might squeeze one in, drive the one next to it with the gun, the go back to the squeezer but have to orient the rivet the opposite way to get the squeezer on it. I can now start concentrating on getting it all attached to the engine and the many tasks involved with that. I was slowed by 3 engine case bolts that needed to be removed so bracketry could be installed. The plans say to reuse the bolts and replace the lock washers. But the added thickness of the brackets under the bolts makes them too short. They are specific Lycoming bolts. Fortunately, Lycoming makes these bolts in a variety of lengths so I've order 3 news ones of appropriate length (at $4 each) so when they get here, I can proceed.

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