Switched back from working on the Vertical Stabilizer to prepping the Horizontal for primer. Lots of deburring, dimpling and scotchbriting. I had also forgot to drill the trim cable hole in the front left spar, so that was done as well.
More of the ribs after being dimpled and hit with a quick pass of the Scotchbrite pads.
I’m going to take the parts home from the hangar so I can prime them.
The Left elevator before removing the skin.
The elevator skin was removed so we could drill the last four holes in the HS-810 and HS-814 spar angles. A couple of clamps hold the spar angles in place until they are drilled.
Here’s a close up of the spar angles after being drilled and with a couple of cleco’s in place.
The Right side elevator after completion of drilling the skins. The Left elevator after skin removal can be seen in the background.
As expected, the second side goes much faster than the first!
Spent today drilling the holes that hold the skins to the spars and ribs. Also match drilled the rest of the skins and all of the holes that tie in the inner ribs to the spar angles.
The photo below shows the myriad of clamps we used to keep everything in place for drilling.
Spent quite a bit of time prepping parts over the last month to start assembly of the horizontal. This included alot of de-burring, fluting the ribs and match drilling parts.
Speaking of fluting.. We struggled with the first couple of ribs, but found this great EAA video that drastically sped up the time it took flute the ribs.
Spent this evening making the relief holes for the bend on HS702. Once I had one side complete and filed, I clecoed them together to make sure they matched. It also makes it easier to open up and round the second hole with the file when you have a guide from the first set you did.
I had a little bit of confusion on how to trim the inboard edges of HS702 so that we maintained the minimum edge distance for the rivets on the top. It shows it clearly in the drawing, but at this point the rivet holes had yet to be drilled, so it’s hard to know what that distance is. Finally decided to take a measurement from the skin to see where the hole would be match drilled as well as put the skin on the spar, cleco the outer holes and see if my measurement made sense.
A few more steps and we can start assembling so it might actually look like an airplane part.
Spent some time this evening bending the HS-810 and HS-814 front spar angles.
It looks a little crude, but it was accomplished by putting a 1/8th radius on a solid piece of wood and clamping it down with the radius right at the bend angle. Bending to 6 degrees was easy with just small taps of a hammer that were checked with a protractor. The first piece was used as the check of the second spar angle to make sure they were uniform.
Today consisted of started working on the front spar. This includes dealing with the HS-00003 doubler that was part of a Van’s Service Bulletin (sb014-01-31). You have to match drill the doubler from the two front spar reinforcement angles.
The directions are a little vague since this is a new update. In one case it references rivet lines in the drawing that don’t exist (they do show on the Service Bulletin though).
Finished rounding the stiffeners, and then match drilled the stiffeners to the rear spar. Clecoed all the elevator brackets in place and started prepping the ribs for assembly.
Today I prepped the rear spar for the stiffeners and match drilled the center elevator bearings.
