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RV6 photo dump

Maybe it's just an artifact of the camera, or the way the light is hitting (and I am definitely no expert), but the riveting looks weird to me, like maybe the dimples were slightly too big, and therefore the rivets a little too countersunk? They also have a look like they were set with something smaller than the rivet head itself, and have a little cup in each one, but again maybe it's the lighting or camera angle.

Otherwise, looks like things have been stored in a barn type area, which may be good or bad, but if there has been rats, mice, or cats running around, I would look over everything very carefully for any signs of pee damage. I can't tell on the empennage attach area, but it looks like maybe some corrosion or graininess happening under the primer or whatever is on that area?

Also, check for any SBs, for example looks like you need the gusset reinforcements on the engine mount/gear leg, but that should not be a big deal since there is no engine yet.

Otherwise, on a -6, the hardest thing to tell from pictures is how square everything is. My understanding is that it required the builder to to build a square jig first, and then build the plane to that. If the jig wasn't square, or the builder not careful, they can be pretty lopsided and there really isn't any way to fix it once certain holes are drilled and riveted.

An RV-6 is still the most economical of all the RV's, and the best bang for the buck, but they are from a time (mostly) when it was more hard core building and not just assembly of pre-formed/punched parts, so the quality variation between each builder is bigger than the later models.

Again, I am no expert, so if you have someone that knows that can put eyes and hands on it, way better than doing Bladerunner on the pictures.
 
Longeron rivets

Check the rivet spacing along the main fuselage longerons where the aft top skin meets the side skins. The plans call for 1 inch spacing, whereas in the photos it looks like every third rivet is missing. That is an important structural joint.
 
Adding to what’s been already noted.
I wonder if this was a quick build kit and the builder has put the top skins on missing every 3rd rivet. As looking at the photos of inside the tailcone it looks like every rivet tail is there. So to fix this the top skins would have to come off again.
Check all the 1/8 th rivets. It looks like someone used the wrong rivet set. All the heads have either smiles or are flattened.
There are odd things like the tinnerman washers around the windscreen over the top of the side skins.
Even a quick look at the photos I’d suggest unless this was a gift and you were prepared to do a lot of remedial work give it a miss.

Regards

Peter
 
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Check the rivet spacing along the main fuselage longerons where the aft top skin meets the side skins. The plans call for 1 inch spacing, whereas in the photos it looks like every third rivet is missing. That is an important structural joint.

Interesting, reviewing pics of the inside fuselage tunnel there is even rivet spacing, possible the bottom skin has the “missing” flush rivets?
 
Interesting, reviewing pics of the inside fuselage tunnel there is even rivet spacing, possible the bottom skin has the “missing” flush rivets?

There should be additional rivets holding the bottom skin to the longerons, midway between every third pair of rivets that go through the top skin. During construction the bottom sides are riveted onto the longerons first, via interim rivets that are 3 inches apart. Their placement needs to be worked out carefully to allow for the final rivets that are 1 inch apart through both of the skins and the longerons. I'd guess that step was not done correctly on this build. When you look at the finished sides you should see a neat row of rivets 1 inch apart along the longeron. When you look inside the "tunnel" along the longeron you should see some rivets that are 0.5" apart.
 
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I see a lot of work ahead as reworking things that do not seem to be correct as noted. If you've built an RV before it will a lot easier.
One needs a bit of experience to get this one in the air. Parts inventory is one of the big questions.
Art
 
with the usual caveats about not really being able to tell a whole lot from pictures, I did notice a few things;

Maybe a trick of the camera, but the AN470AD-4 rivets on the aft deck look like they have rings on the heads like maybe they were driven with a set for a -3 rivet. If that's the case, Mil-Spec MIL-R-47196A has a spec for rivet head allowable damage. Without looking it up, I'd guess that a whole row of those is cause for concern.

Picture 14 & 16 show a couple of pull rivets that look like they don't have mandrels in them, like maybe they used a non-structural rivet? If that's the case, I'd want to replace them, but more importantly, I'd want to look over the whole project to see what other stuff might have been done off plan.

There are a couple of pull rivets in the firewall cutout that don't seem to belong there. at least on the RV7 they don't. Nothing really catastrophic as long as they didn't blow the min rivet pitch or edge distance on the supporting firewall angle, but it's just a little odd.

I'd want to replumb the lines coming from those static ports. The T should be higher than either of the ports so that any water that gets into the system would have to run back out instead of running uphill to get into the rest of the system. The way it's plumbed now is just asking for trouble, because any rain water (or overzealous airplane washing) that finds its way into the port side static port will cause water to immediately run downhill into the line going forward where it will slosh back and forth and cause all sorts of bizarre static errors.

I read the comments above about every 3rd rivet missing from the skin lap in the tailcone. If that's the case, a call to Vans is in order, but I'd guess that you'd be looking at drilling out a bunch of rivets to un-lap the upper skin to fix that. Not a super hard job, but if you screw up those longerons, it suddenly becomes a huge deal, because they run all the way from the tip of the tail to the firewall.
 
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