N number reserved!

Reserved my N number today. I went with N912BC and found it was available. All the other cool ideas I had were taken. "912" is obvious a nod to the engine as well as the "12" and "BC" for Brian Chesteen. It seems to flow off this hillbilly's tongue pretty good and sort of reminds me of 310 Pilot's tail number.

Christmas is getting better

 Well….things must be improving at the factory because I have not even inventoried my emp kit yet and I just got a request today for final payment of my wing kit. I have got to get on the ball!!!

Its Christmas Time In March!

Yesterday was Christmas time and I went to the local Old Dominion terminal to pick up my empennage kit.  

I was a bit nervous due to the fact that the last 7 crates I have received from Van's have been totally destroyed by the freight companies.  Luckily Van's knows how to build crates and pack kits in a manner that helps keep the carnage to a minimum!  For those 7 kits, there were only minor damages on a few of them.

Much to my surprise and happiness, this crate was in almost pristine condition!  Thanks Old Dominion for awesome service!  The people there were very friendly and helpful getting me loaded up!

Got the top off the kit and started the inventory.  Seems Van's is now grouping parts in subkits which should make this process easier as well as make finding the parts when needed easier.

This is what a crap ton of blind rivets looks like!  Each yellow box is 1,000 and the bag has like 2K more!

It is almost Christmas time! :)

Received the magic email yesterday letting me know that my empennage/tail cone kit have shipped!

Primer wars!

 I do plan on priming all the internal surfaces of the RV-12IS.  I primed the RV-7 with several different kinds of products.  Everything from waterborne to self etching rattle can.  For the RV-10 it was all 2 part AKZO which is likely the best there is for the job.

That being said, I am looking for something safer to use for this project.  Easy clean up is a plus.  Therefore I have chosen to start the build by using Stewart System's 2 part EkoPoxy product.  This product is minimally hazardous and uses waterborne technology.  It has become well proven over the past several years and should serve my needs perfectly.

I picked the Zinc Chromate Green variant of their product since it should match the self etching rattle can color well enough for the occasional parts that I might use that on.  Disregard the color on these pics.

As for prep, I will be using the etch and scuff with maroon Scotchbrite pad method.  No hazardous Alodine will be used.

For the occasional random parts I will use self etching rattle can primer.  This stuff is my favorite:

Can’t have too many tools!

Been acquiring a few tools that I will be needing....

First off is you need a way to pull all the bazillion blind rivets and I am not about to do that with a manual puller!  Seems everyone goes for the el-cheapo Harbor Freight unit.  So did I!

Also added a 120° #30 pilot countersink bit from Cleaveland Tool:

Went ahead and picked up another 3M Scotchbrite Wheel so I can have one on both sides of my grinder.  These things are critical in my opinion in doing a good deburring job as easily as possible.  They are not cheap but are worth it!

Also refreshed my stock on the 1" versions of these that run on a die grinder.  Got these from Cleaveland Tool:

And last but not least, I picked up 200 more 1/8" Clecos.  You can't ever have too many.  I had 350 from my RV-7 and RV-10 builds so now I have 550!  Got these from Van's.

So I don't want to list a bunch of stuff about my tools since I have A LOT of them from my RV-7 and RV-10 builds.  You can find a bunch of info here where I posted about some of them during the RV-10 build:  Brantel's Tools

Ordered wings and fuselage kits!

So due to the lead times on kits, I just went ahead and ordered the wings and fuselage in addition to the tail cone/empennage.

Not like I will see them anytime soon but might as well get in line....