Happy Halloween everyone! Tricia was nice enough to carve up a pumpkin for our new RV10 since it’s out little baby! Didn’t she do great?
I was able to get the baggage area wrapped up. After disassembling the door, deburring and dimpling everything, I got the door shell riveted together. Then I placed sound/insulation inside the door frame and mounted the key lock. The lock mechanism came with several blades that act as the locking bar. Most were the wrong shape or too short. There was one blade that was about 3 inches, but was too long to fit inside the door to rotate out of the way when the door is opened. So I used the dremmel to cut it to a shorter length and rounded the edges on the grinder and polished with the scotchbrite wheel. Now it firmly extends into the latch but also retracts into the door.
The next step was to rivet the door jam and hinge piece to the side skin and upper and lower supports. Some tight spots, but with some inventive bucking bar components I was able to set them all. After getting it riveted into place, you are then told to reinsert the hinge wire to join the hinge halves to attach the door. There is very little room to do this. I found that I was just able to get the wire to go in the bottom eyelet and then used a mallet to slowly work the wire up the hinge assembly. The door sits nicely flush with the side skin. The top of the door is a little proud, but I used an edge roller to give it a little inward slant and it works nicely. I want to come back and finish sealing up the door area as well as the door parts. Being a resident of Oregon, there will be a fair number of times when the door area will be opened in the rain and I would like to cut down on water intrusion.
After the door was done, the small triangular area just in front of the door on the inside of the fuselage needed to be covered. So the parts were final/match drilled and insulation was added to this area. The cover was installed, riveted in place and a few nutplates added for screwing in some of the removable trim pieces later. In the process of prepping the piece, I noticed the bottom flange of the cover would sit over the top of two screw holes for the step inspection plate. So I used a sanding drum on the dremmel and made two semi-circle cutouts to make room for the panel to be inserted and screwed in. Actually looks like it was made this way so I am pleased.
myrv10factory 