I riveted the parts for the horizontal stabilizer rear spar this evening. The flange-nose squeezer was very useful here as the manufactured heads are expected to be on the flange side of the spar. The squeezer makes riveting easy and… Read More »Horizontal Stabilizer Rear Spar Riveted
I finished countersinking the spars and stringers today and I washed, etched, rinsed, and dried all of the remaining parts. I then primed everything on one side, waited for about an hour and primed the other side. Ready to start… Read More »Horizontal Stabilizer Ready for Riveting
I worked partial days on Thursday and Friday to get things ready for priming. All of the remaining holes were deburred, ribs were dimpled, skins were dimpled, the front spar was countersunk, and most of the parts were washed, etched,… Read More »Finishing the Horizontal Stabilizer Parts
Today was the not-as-fun part of building an airplane. I final drilled all of the holes in the skins (took about an hour and a half), marked the empennage fairing attachment holes on the skins and ribs, and then took… Read More »Match Drilling and Deburring
I put in another solid day today on the horizontal stabilizer. I started out by building some cradles to hold the stabilizer. The plans call for making cradles out of plywood but I went with a simpler approach that would… Read More »Horizontal Stabilizer Initial Assembly
Thankfully I work for a company that hasn’t been negatively impacted by COVID-19 and I have been able to work from home since March. I also haven’t taken any time off since then so I decided I needed to take… Read More »Horiz. Stabilizer Front Spar, Inspar Ribs, and Nose Ribs
When I finished up for the evening on Wednesday I took a look through the next step (Page 8-3, step 3). This step requires you to fabricate two brackets from a piece of thick aluminum angle. These are important brackets… Read More »Front Spar Attach Brackets
I got started on the horizontal stabilizer this evening. This is a large part and the rear spar is over 11 feet long. Hannah came out to remove the bluing and to help support the spar for all of the… Read More »Getting Started on the Horizontal Stabilizer
I went out to the garage this evening with the goal of getting the rudder done. It is done! Bending the skins over the rudder counterbalance ending up being simple enough to do. Measure three times then start bending. The… Read More »Rudder is Complete!
This step took longer than anticipated.. but I should expect that now. I had some extra 1 1/4″ PVC pipe from my paint booth project which I used to roll the rudder leading edge. I started out by myself and… Read More »Rudder Leading Edge Riveted
