2/1-3/2008 - 10 Hours 
Started off the February with a day off work due to weather. All of State Farm was closed down. So I took this opportunity to work on the plane of course. I did various repetitive things over the course of the 3 day weekend:

Scuffed, cleaned and primed all wing skins.
Scarfed the top skins just aft of the tank where the two skins overlap per directions. Turned out nice.
Cleco'd the top wing skins on.
Rebuilt the W423 Joint plate that couples the tank to the Leading Edge (LE). I screwed this up previously and spent 3 hours making new ones!
Deburred, Dimpled, scuffed, cleaned and primed the left LE.
All top skins as well as the left LE are ready for riveting!

 

Received the SafeAir1 Dynon Pitot Tube Mast.


2/4/2008 - 3 Hours
Took today off work. Spent about 3 hours in the garage doing various things. Started work on the right Leading Edge. Deburred and dimpled the ribs. Did the same to the skin as well. Got most of it dimpled.

2/5/2008 - 2 Hours
Finished dimpling the right LE skin. Also primed all parts. After priming, I cleco'd the structure together in the cradle.

2/6/2008 - 1.5 Hours
Riveted the right LE.
Next up is removing the outboard top skins thanks to the wonderful out of order Van's instructions! Need to take those off so I can get a squeezer around the flange of spar to rivet on the LE's. Here are pics showing both wings with the tanks and LE's resting on top of the spar. Sweet eh?!!



2/9/2008 - 4 Hours
Riveted both Leading Edge's to the spar. Including the ribs to spar. All but two ribs on each LE were done with LP4-3 blind type rivets. As getting the offset rivet set up near the rib is pretty much impossible. Van's says you can do this. I had to grind down the rivet tool even more than I had it already. It  fits nice now. I did manage to put the proper AN470 type rivet into two ribs on each LE since there was enough room.
Cleco'd the outboard skins on (again).
Also leak tested (again) the left tank. It's all good now.

Got to love this... notice that empty hole way out there at the edge of the leading edge? Well that would be a hole without a rivet and I just riveted this leading edge onto the spar. My arm is way to thick to get it up through that narrow hole ... either a kid will have to hold the bucking bar or it will get a blind rivet.


2/11/2008 - 1.75 Hours
Riveted (alone) the right inboard skin to 6 ribs. Wasn't easy and I have 1 smiley to show for it. All in all it turned out nice. I started out in the middle of the middle most rib and then worked down towards the rear spar while laying on a creeper. Did that on all the ribs until to the rear spar then started at the middle again and worked up to the main spar.
The reason why the tank is not on (the directions have you install it just before riveting skins) is because I am waiting for 22 gauge wire to wire up the fuel tank senders.


2/12/2008 - 2 Hours
A friend, Jeff Price, came over this afternoon and helped me buck rivets along the remaining ribs of the right wing. We also knocked out most of the top row of rivets along the spar. Thanks Jeff!
 
2/16-17/2008 - 2 Hours
Riveted the aft most row of rivets by laying on the creeper. Next, my hottie wife Jo came out and we riveted the forward most row of the top skin to the spar.


2/20/2008 - 1 Hour
Screwed and bolted the tank on after wiring the fuel level sender no pics of this though

2/22/2008 - 4 Hours
Built the cradle for the wings. Lots of fun there... I don't care for wood working too much. Damn saw dust gets everywhere. It's 99% done complete with wheels and carpet.  Still need to cut the notches on the inboard end.



2/24/2008 - 4 hours
Very productive day. Started out with the Hottie Wife on top skins for the left wing. After a few of those Jeff Price showed up and helped me out with the rest. The three of us completed the whole left wing! Turned out nice! That's Jeff  (in the dark shirt) below....

 
2/25/2008 - 1 Hour
Bolt/Screwed on the left tank. Next up is moving it to the bench, taking down the jigs and then start work on the landing light cutouts. 


2/28/2007 - 1 Hour
Terry Wendling, fellow RV-7 builder hooked me up with the Duckworks template so I could cut the holes in the leading edges of the wings. I will probably go with AeroSun LED lights. The are nice and small, more powerful than a 100W halogen, built-in wig-wag and draw less current. I also like how easy it is to point them. Here's pics of the cutout.. rough.



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