Van's RV Fuel Tank Construction Tips 

Am I weird to think that this much better than any movie ?? lol

Thanks Scott and Van’s. This is the kind of video that I wish you guys would make for all of the more error prone parts. There are tons of videos on the internet, but none of them speak with the authority and experience that you bring to the table.

More of these. This is extremely helpful and I am so thankful. Please continue

Thank you so much for your content. Yes indeed it is a comprehensive how to video. I can’t believe I was patient enough to watch the whole 2 hours and 39 minutes of it in one sitting. You’re a good teacher and craftsman sir.

A true craftsman! Nice clean work 👍

Wow ! Very informative! No filler or fluff. Just pertinent information. This is very encouraging for new and experienced builders. Please keep the content coming. Love it 🤙🤙🤙

I don't know Scott and he seems like a really nice guy and experienced mechanic/builder. I dont want to outright call him a liar but let's be honest here. After my first day of working with pro-seal it's absolutely impossible to make using that crap as easy to use as what Scott does. I want some of the "easy application" stuff they made especially for you guys. If that doesn't exist, please send Scott out here to help me so I can record him building mine to prove it isn't a fluke :-) ! In all seriousness, send him out here, please!! Man, that stuff is a trip but it was kinda fun. Definitely cool to learn how to use this stuff. Thank you for the video. Im guessing without it I would be building a couple sets of tanks.

Great video. I hope this turns into a series.

I’m new to Aircraft Manufacturing. By far no stranger to machining and fabrication work. These are my hobbies! Scott’s slow and detailed attitude are the perfect recipe to building my fuel tank or wings. This would be a place where money well spent wouldn’t be an issue. Love the detailed video. I’m considering purchasing your kit. I’m 60, nearing retirement and never completed my instruction. 66hrs.Thank you for clearing up the one million questions that I have.

Excellent instructions by a "Master Builder". I hope you do more videos. Well done Scott.

Your video reenforces why the tank riveting needs to be done while wet; unlike the method presented elsewhere of letting the sealant cure while cleco’d then riveting just to avoid the mess. Thanks Scott.

If there was a video like this for every step of the build process I would probably have taken the plunge on an RV-8 already! Great content. Please make more.

My OCD was tickled satisfactorily. Coming from the automotive world to aircraft building, sealant is ALWAYS overused and misunderstood. Loved this video. Bravo!

This is really great content! Very helpful and informative! I hope you guys do a whole series like this and publish them with the plans.

Thanks Vans, we need more of these from the Experts.

I can watch these videos all day! I wish Scott would make more ❤

Great video. Just what I needed to be more confident about building the tanks. Thank you!

This video really is excellent. It would be great to see more of these and maybe a regular series.

Excellent presentation! So many tips mentioned that many may not know about. Keep these coming, I would definitely be interested to see thoughts on tank testing and repair techniques.

Only a quart? What do I do with the other 3?? LOL, just kidding. This is GREAT and perfect timing as I intend to finish a tank over the holiday break. Please continue to post things like this!!

PLEASE DO MORE!

This was such a great informative video from a trusted source. I would absolutely love to see one on the RV-10 fuselage top and doors along with any aircraft windscreen. Keep up the great work Van’s.

Awesome video! Please make more! (rv-7 builder)

You need to do a LOT more of these video's. I think your channel would EXPLODE in viewership and subscriptions if you did!

Up to 33,500 views - I bet that has saved a lot of phone calls and build issues! Excellent, professional commentary, Scott.

Could you do one about fiberglass? Fairings and such, that would be amazingly helpful. Thanks Vans!!

Some of the best I've ever seen on RV construction. I concur this should be a series in the making.

Great video - thanks, very practical

Great Video. Can't wait to see the follow up. makes me want to start my own build.

Wow, amazing job! You guys nailed the video! This provided just the right amount of detail in how to build one of the tanks. Would love to see more of these covering some of the trickier aspects of the build, or really, any other large assemblies that you feel builders often struggle with.

Thanks for the great video Scott McDaniels and also it's great to put a face to the name.

Thank you for the video and a very clear explanations, it’s awesome!

A great video about building the fuel tanks. Unfortunately I am nearly done with mine while looking the video, but learned a lot not to build up dimensions on the rear baffle and z-brackets for not having a problem to screw the tanks to the wing. Having seen this video before I startet my tanks would have given me much more confidence to start with the “goop”😁 Thank you so much for supporting us builders with such great tips 💖

Great content from a trusted source. Thanks for sharing!

Scott - this is an absolutely superb video- thanks so much. It sets the benchmark for all the other kit manufacturers, too.

Great job. We need more videos like this. Thanks

Wow! Great video to help with what seems like one of the most daunting components for the uninitiated. Thanks!

Fantastic video

This. Is. Gold.

Excellent video! Even better at 1.5 speed. Thanks for all the tips.

great video

Please do more videos like this! I’m a new builder and need all the help I can get. Do one on deburring a rib with difficult flanges. Thank you!

Can u do more videos this is amazing detail what is needed

Great video!

Cool video

This is why I ordered the Quickbuild wings ;)

Good job on the video...

Where was this video when we did our tanks??? Wish we had Scott for a few weeks at our build. So much to learn from him.

That was extremely useful, thank you for producing the video. I would not be confident in that final rear baffle seal, but I guess the proof is in the pressure test.....if it fails then I assume I will have drill out all those rivets, remove it, clean up and try again. Fingers crossed...

1:15 minutes. Squeezing aft most rivets. 4 inch yoke does not work on an RV14 tank (probably true for RV10 too). The aft most rivet is closer to the rear flange that gets riveted to the baffle. Hopefully I will use this new yoke somewhere else but I bought it specifically for my tank build and it wasn’t cheap😢. I wound up using a bucking bar with a clamp squeezing (holding would be more accurate) the aft end of the tank (on the opposite side of where I was riveting) to stabilize the skin while setting these aft most rivets. I took a screenshot and went out to my garage just to make sure I wasn’t missing something and those rivets are definitely further forward on the tank that Scott is building.

Damn, three years too late! These tips will be used next build :;

After all these years I always thought there was a separate fuel tanl badder inside of the wing!

I am not the builder of my 22 years old RV6A and I have the problem of a Tank with ~30 leaking rivets. Thanks to the video I can see, what the builder did wrong. He did not seal the ends of the rivets. :( I will have to use tank repair kits from Van's but thanks to the video now I think I know how to seal the existing tank and the Backplates. Thank you !!

Nice! This is how the pros do it. I was thinking about buying the QB wings but after watching this, I'm feeling confident I could do it. Some other vids out there, the builder (novice) has slopped a ton of sealant and then gone back to add more sealant. Then yes once again, more sealant! After watching, I wondered if the range would be effected by the sealant. I knew it couldn't be that hard, after watching this faith restored.

Great video Scott. Yes more like this. Finished my tanks few years ago but watched the video anyway to somewhat confirm what I did. Liked your tip about sealing shop head with small dia tube. Also liked the tip about the back riveting the 3/16 rivet. Has many other potential uses. I have the more $$$$ DRDT but it does not have that feature as the one you used. Question about the rivet gun you used. Was that a 2X? I have both 2x and 3X but find the 3X just a bit harder to control when solo especially on the curved surfaces like the Tank but I still tend to use it more often that the 2X for some reason .

Excellent explaination Video. Question the hole from manufacturing can i also weld it in Order to Close it?

👍good work 👍🇺🇸❤️

I want to do this so bad! Just got back from Oshkosh and so fired up.

Make more like this!

Great video, I’d love to see one detailing the flop tube installation procedures as they are not well described in the plans as far as re routing of the fuel line, placement of the float in the second bay and the “trap door” between bay 1 and 2. Love the tips in this video though, keep the great info coming!

Two words: quick build

Excellent video Scott and Vans! This has given me that little confidence boost that I can do it too. Just need to build my RV8 elevators, then once I´ve moved house and sorted a new workshop somewhere, the wing kit will be promptly ordered! :)

Hello Scott, I thank you and Van’s so much for this video that helped me incredibly. I was really worried about tank construction but thanks to your explanations everything was much easier and clearer. I am sure, without this video I would have made a big mess. I am very happy with the result and the final quality and in particular, the fact that the tanks were perfectly seald (I only had to adjust the two filler caps that were leaking initially, easy to correct by slightly tightening the center nut): Here are my experiences: • check the fluting of the ribs very well specially to align the holes perfectly toward the leading edge where the radius of curved skin is changing. • Keep a spray bottle with acetone (or similar) on hand and immediately wipe off any small unwanted traces of sealant either on the fingers, the tools, the clecos or the structure • Prepare a large number of small pieces of paper towels to use for cleaning (I used to cut a 10-sheet pack of paper towels into 6/8 parts from time to time, al lot of them … • Do not use black-colored gloves (you can't tell when you get sealant on them), blue ones are perfect (I used a 200-piece box for the two tanks) • For the two tanks (RV-14) I used a box (Quart Kit) and at most 150 grams of a second box. This was considering that I was making small badges and so wasted a lot of sealant. • For the leak test, I built a siphon with a small clear plastic tube to create a 65 cm high water column (to stay sollo 1 PSI). Much more controllable than the balloon, which in any case is porous and leaks. When testing take into account temperature changes that affect the pressure inside the tank. The important thing is that the column returns to the same level at the same temperature. I did iun 72-hour test.

This is a very good video but I do have a warning that should be helpful. I built my first 2 tanks in 2007 with no leaks. 2 deer ran in front of me while landing and I had to build two new tanks. I decided to watch this video just as a reminder of the process. I followed Scott’s directions on the back baffle install and ended up with a leak. I caught the mistake before finishing the 2nd tank and before finding the leak on the first tank. I layed the bead just like Scott did on the the tank that ended up with a leak. When laying the bead it needs to touch the bottom of the rivets holes at least, the baffle will then smear the bead down. If you do it like Scott does in the video it is too low, you’ll take the chance having a leak if you put the bead that low. I hope this helps.

Great video, but I wish he would have talked about the use of proseal and gasket for the inspection plates, and how to pressure test. I am at that stage now and just found out I shouldn't be using a gasket at all, and should proseal the inspection plate, and the screws for the inspection plate. It's no big deal to do it now, but I was confused why I was getting leaks out of the inspection plate after just screwing it down with the gasket only. But still, I learned a lot from this video. Really great content for idiots like me to learn from.

Hi, I love your video! I saw you were using the wood sticks, and thought I had to mention, have you ever tried using a silicone corner tool?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I guess a video + Scott is worth oh I'd guess 100K? 500K? I'm about to start my RV10 empennage kit. I'd pay for a similar video for each of the most difficult parts of the various kits? Talk about game changer and loyalty? Hey, just sayin'. Thanks Scott! and Vans.

It depends what PRC you are using. B-2 will setup in two hours so it will give you better riveting.

I have two questions.. 1) why did you make the fuel cap hole bigger and stop selling the Newton Aero deluxe cap? I deleted the plastic ones on my recent wink kit order, only to discover that the Newton caps don’t fit right anymore! 2) any thoughts of putting in a return fitting just in case while you’re building the tanks? I hear some fuel injected guys use a return, and I could imagine putting one in now and just capping it would save a bunch of time in the future. I don’t even know which fuel injection systems (AFP purge valve maybe?) require the return, but it has me curious..

Good work . I'm on a project to create a simple aircraft jettison system using simple tanks . It helped me alot with tank construction. How can i get in touch with you for more guidance

How the access hole, cover and doubler are sealed?

Did you enlarge or relieve the holes for the closed end rivets that hold ribs and "Z" brackets to the Baffle? Those rivets do not have any taper and have a rather sharp edge. I did not find that they slid easily into the receiving holes, no matter how I tried to "twirl" them.

Would it be a problem if you painted everything in there (skin&ribs) before the assembly? Does the sealant need to be applied to bare metal?

Scott it seems as if the RV Fuel tanks can only be run one at a time? Is there a reason both tanks can’t be switched on at the same time?

Perfect timing! I’ll be doing my tanks in the next few weeks! How many hours do you plan per tank? Prep, cap flanges, drain bungs in one day? All ribs day 2? Then rear baffle on the third day sound reasonable?

Good Audio Makes Good Video (as Paul Bertorelli said on the AV Web channel when quoting sound professionals on January 2018). This piece needs a clip-on microphone, a Script and a TelePrompTer.

I'm assuming that the sealant is an epoxy or another type of chemical reaction adhesive. Meaning it doesn't dry, it sets then it cures. It must set and cure at least 72 degrees, and preferably between 76 and 80. If it's not cured at these tempatures, It can later fail.

Is your rivet gun set to stop automatically before it goes too far?

How many tubes of ProSeal should I order from Vans and how much of the user mix cans?

Why are his jeans, t-shirt, arms, face, hair, the workbench and floor not covered in sealant? I thought that this was mandatory.

No doubts that I could build a leak free tank now.

Interseting video, I notice your using semco sealant/gun etc and wonder why you don't use adhesion promoter?.

Is there sealant name and part number that I must get?

Can the next one be on pressure testing the tank?

For the bead of sealant on the baffle, would it be recommended to make a nice fillet on the inside where you can get to it from the access hole?

I noticed that the fuel vent line clip attached to the fuel fill flange interferes with creating a radius finish on the sealant (around 27 minute mark). If you radius the sealant before setting the last two rivets you can have a nice job under the vent line clip. I doubt much extra sealant would extrude at that point. Could you try that and let us know how it works?

The tank looks so clean compare to my tank when I got to this stage

Is that an RV15 in the background with the blue windshield? 🤔

What is your background

Scott, you keep talking about excess sealant and build-up. Why does Van's not use a type C sealant that is specifically designed for paying surfaces? Is it that no one has ever heard of C and B is just more economical and easier to get?

Are you working on a prototype? Maybe an RV15? Looks like an RV10 fuselage in background? Either an old video or is Vans building another RV10. Hmm.

Lets just say that I used A LOT more sealant ;)

Will having too much sealant cause a problem? Will it not cure?

have a nice day. max speed. 275-300 mph. range 2000 mph. Two-seater plane for $200,000. A 4-seater plane for $300,000. Can I have it done to you or others? please provide information. thanks.

Is it my imagination or does Scott sound EXACTLY like John Malkovich? I had to chuckle as I closed my eyes and imagined it was John Malkovich telling me how to build an 8 😂😂😂

I wonder if guys saying they "sloshed the tanks" means this process wasn't done very well.

1:27:55 why was there a hole to begin with?

What a mess! Is there anybody without shaking hends?

It’s makes no difference it’s factor in the layout. Has a A&P tech for thirty’s year I have repaired skins with no issues.

Informative video, but two words...."wireless microphone"....