Blending surfaces

THE RV-7 AIRCRAFT

THE QUICKBUILD KIT

BUILDING THE KIT
THE EMPENNAGE

THE WINGS

THE FUSELAGE

THE CANOPY

THE ENGINE

PAINT

AVIONICS

THE OTHER 90%

e-mail: robert@protekperformance.com

OTHER USEFUL SITES
Experimental Aircraft Assoc.
Vans Aircraft Home Page
Van's Air Force - World Wing
Kitplanes Magazine
Avery Tools
Some nice RV pics

LOCAL WEATHER
LOCAL SATELLITE LOOP

Project started 8/15/01
First flight 7/02/03
Flight hours to date - 395
Last updated 8/28/08

The other half of the empennage project

10-15-01
I thought I was finished with the empennage until I went to Chino airport last weekend to look at some finished RVs. What I saw was a full range of extra work done on the empennage sections. This work ranged from simply painting the riveted parts to fully blending all the riveted surfaces to make them smooth and straight. The bad news is that the planes that had the most extra work done to them looked the best. The good news is that the plane with no extra work flew just as well. The problem at hand is how much extra work should be done to make the plane look nice. I guess this is a decision that every builder must decide for himself.

I decided to blend the top sufaces of my horizontal empennage pieces (HS and elevators).

This looks great when it's done. But, beware there are a lot of extra hours involved here. Here are the elevator ends before and after blending.

Here is an elevator end with the first coat of epoxy added. After several (many) iterations of sanding, primering, spot putting addition, epoxy addition, and lots more sanding, you can get a nicely formed elevator end.

My conclusion here is to do the least amount of blending that will get you the most amount of improved cosmetics. Just to blend the tops of the elevators, I have spent more time on body work than it took to build the elevators in the first place.

I used a lightweight epoxy filler called "Superfil" from Poly Fiber. This product can be ordered from Aircraft Spruce.