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We’ve been making good progress on the Xenos, but have been so busy that we haven’t been posting as much as I’d like. Lots of little details we learned along the way to this point – the tail cone box is all clecoed together, fully drilled – and ready to take apart for deburring, then reassembly and riveting.



The shipping crate workbench has been great – just the right size to let the forward few in ches and aft foot hang over, and those are parts you need to get at from the bottom during this phase. We actually have the bottom skin and lower cross-ties clecoed to the table-top – that gives us a flat reference plain to work from when making things square. We had to actually do a couple of evolutions of this – with first the starboard, then the port side hanging off the edge to match drill from the skin holes (bottom-up) to the lower longerons. Then we slid the whole thing to center and drilled it to the table for the rest of the assembly.



It took a little while to figure out that to drill the aft deck in place, we had to do it on top of the longerons first – then open up the back end to get it inserted properly UNDER the longerons to drill it to the cross-bar at the front. I think we’ve worked out the re-assembly sequence to make sure we don’t paint ourselves into a corner with the tailwheel mount parts – but we’ll see when we get there!

Paul

Looking great Paul! I bet you're having a blast. Two recommendations: 1) don't rivet the floor until you're ready for painting or the final inspection, there are some things you'll need to do later on in the rear fuselage and 2) rivet in the seat belt shoulder attach points now, when you look at the plans and see where they are located you'll know why.

Keep up the work - it's worth it.

-- Michael
XENOS N42XE, flying for 3-1/2 years
OneX N169XE, goal is for first flight in April 2015

Looks great Paul! Nice work. Follow Michael's suggestions. You'll be glad you did! Keep up the good work!

Thanks guys - I figured there was a reason that the plans show NOT to rivet the floor at this time, and I have been guessing it was access for later installations. How about the little piece of floor skin in the last foot? The plans show to rivet that now, and I figured that was to rigidize the structure in the tail-post area.

Might slow down a bit in the near future - holiday travel and two condition inspections on our other planes due in January....

Paul

You've made a lot of excellent progress Paul! Thank you for sharing!

I also agree with Michael and Joe's recommendation of waiting on floor riveting until the very end. In fact, I was often teased when I was performing initial engine run and taxi tests at my airport and I had that skin cleco'd in place! Everyone thought I forgot about the rivets, but having access was a very helpful tool later on.

Best of luck on the Condition Inspections on the RV's, and hopefully you can get back to building soon!