Joe Ruscito's Kitfox S7 Build

[Esser]

Hmm on my kit they were counter sunk

[efwd]

countersunk or not, mine were pull rivets, so they aren't smooth. I put 1/8 closed cell upholstery foam over the center portion and put the fabric over that. Other than slots for the flaps and pedal adjust levers my center console is smooth and soft. down side, the fuel valve placard bows up on either end being that its rectangular and the valve gets tightened down on the middle. Not bad but I didn't think about that. I could enlarge the hole on that placard and have it ride around the brass valve but It isn't bad enough to make me do that.

[aviator79]

I used counter sunk pull rivets. Covers with fabric only. It's like they aren't there.

[Frontier Fox]

I used counter sunk pull rivets also.

[JoeRuscito]

Made some progress the last few days. I've run up on a few road blocks due to back ordered parts. Mainly the bushing and bearing for the horizontal and the master cylinders for the pedals. I hope to get an update from the factory once they are back in office.

Center council is fit and drilled, floor boards are in and ready for varnish. Pedals are in and drilled. Vertical and rudder are 90% hysoled.






Seat pan is fit, sanded, and installed. The nut plates were a bit of a pain, they like to cross thread. Even when they are thread correctly it's easy to spin the head on the screw due to the locking pinch point.


These are the rivets I was supplied as "flush heads" Maybe the thin head conforms to the countersunk hole? I would expect them to have a matching chamfer under the head. Can anyone confirm these are or are not flush rivets?

[efwd]

Nut plates with floating nuts are more expensive but really help with getting hardware into them. Untill the nut plate gets a little use you may, as youve discovered, strip a few screw heads out. The rivet you show looks like what I was provided. It's been awhile so I don't recall exactly. They don't install as a flush solid rivet would. As others have said, the fabric will cover it I suppose. Fabric supplied in the interior kit is much thicker and more durable than some faux suade fabric I had bought to trial a project I had in mind for the console. The supplied fabric was thicker and doesn't conform to grooves and crevices that I had hoped it would so I am certain you won't see the rivet heads as others have stated.

[aviator79]

The nut plates also don't forget very well on those tabs. I used Rivnuts.

[Esser]

I loathe nutplates and replace them with high quality steel rivnuts where ever I could.

I left the nutplates in the wing tip and because the supplied screws are Phillips, half of them got destroyed by being stripped while trying to make the nutplates pinched part open up. . I replaced all the Phillips screw on the wing tip with SS Roberts. Why any hardware still has a Phillips head on it makes no sense to me.

[DesertFox4]

You can run the approriate sized thread tap into a nut plate part way to relieve some of the “grip” strength if the part being held doesn’t need all the holding power of a prestine nut plate.

[jrevens]

Joe,

The rivet you are holding doesn’t look like it is a “flush head” in the picture. Flush head rivets have a definite formed taper on the mating surface of the head, whether pulled or solid driven rivets. Pulled (“pop”) rivets generally have a 120 deg. head, while the solid AN rivets are 100 deg. Use the correct countersink or dimple dies accordingly. It’s hard to see on your picture, but it appears like that may be a flush head rivet on the surface behind your hand. Use the correct rivets. It’s not unheard of for kits to occasionally have some parts mislabeled.

Like Steve said, sometimes running a tap part way into an all-metal lightweight nut-plate is helpful, especially for the smaller (6-32 & 8-32) sizes.

Josh - one of the reasons Phillips head screws are used many times is because they eliminate, or at least minimize the possibility of the screwdriver slipping off the fastener and marring a nice finish. Of course, there are “button heads” using an Allen wrench, torx, and others also. There are several common different designs of cross slotted (“phillips”) screw heads. The key is to use the correct driver, and it’s sometimes a little difficult to identify what that is.