Horizontal Stabalizer

The HStab is finished after 87.3 hours.  This is where you start to grasp just how many freakin' rivets are in this plane.  The HStab itself is 11, maybe 12' wide and has close to 1000 holes.

The local EAA tech counceler Tom Olson stopped by to do a final inspection on this piece.  I had been reading some forums online where they showed some super poor examples of riveting in aircraft that were flying.  They hadn't crashed which speaks to the design of this plane, but they wouldn't have withstood the 6g design limits either.  So that scared me into thinking I need an experienced eye looking at my work before I moved on.  Tom had all good things to say, and even wondered if I had done metal work before.  We had a long conversation about his days working in my department 35 years ago.


Here's the front spar, doubler and attachment brackets on.



You use some of the longest rivets in the kit on these parts.



I'm slowly working the kids up to the point where they can make a meaninful contribution.  Here's Sawyer doing an excellent job of deburring a rib flange (aka flossing the teeth)



And some not-so-constructive playing toy swords with some stiffeners:



I let Sawyer come "help" me one day after his nap, he spent 45 minutes making a rough draft of the aircraft's paint design.



Here is first assembly/match drilling.  There's only clecos in half the holes.



The ribs after disassembly, ready for priming.  Just scrubbing these down in preparation for priming took the better part of an hour.



Dimpling the skins.  I really like my setup with just having the dimple die a little above table height to allow for the carpet.  Only thing I may change is to back it up a bit as its difficult to get some edge holes dimpled when the piece has to mostly hang off the front of the workbench.



Sawyer came in after a nap one afternoon and watched Ice Age.



Then helped me dimple, except he whacked the handle one time when he wasn't supposed to and made the first boo-boo on my skins.  Its not bad, and its on the bottom of the HStab so nobody will know.



Assembly starts with attaching ribs and the stiffeners to the rear spar.



Darn fine rivets if I may say so myself.  Sure love that pneumatic squeezer.



Dad helped for a few days when I was on vacation.



The finished product.  Whew that was a big one!

Rudder Finished

The rudder trailing edge was set with proseal and cured for a couple weeks while I fought with a nasty stomach bug.  It was ugly.

To rivet it, I bought a chunk of 2x2x1/8" angle iron, and match drilled every other hole in the trailing edge of the rudder.  My inspiration came from Tim Olson's instructions.  Put a rivet in every other hole, taped them then cleco'd all the open holes to the angle iron.  After it was done I wish I would have left 5-6 holes without rivets because then you could use them to hold down the rudder in a few spots once you flip it and do the rest of the rivets.





To actually drive the rivets, start with the backrivet set and start it, then finish off with the mushroom set.  I don't think mine turned out that great, but don't have anything to compare to.  The trailing edge however is super straight and that's the important part.



I did the last two steps out of order because I didn't have a pipe for rolling the leading edge laying around.  Here I bent the leading ledge and fitted the counterweight.  Its a heavy chunk of metal (maybe lead).  Feels like it nearly doubles the weight of the whole rudder.

First you crease the skins where they fold over the counterweight, then use a couple wood blocks and a soft hammer to actually make the crease.



In the process I found the first use for my super beefy DOTCO angle drill.  Doubt it was 100% necessary but did make it easier.




The leading edge counterweight installed.  The instructions give you an option last step of putting another rivet in the middle to snug down any "pillowed" metal.  Mine exhibited this a bit, so I did it.




Last was rolling the leading edge.  I bought both a 3/4" and 1" PVC Schedule 40 pipe for this, ended up using the 3/4" for all of it.  It was a little bit of a bear because the curve changes over the length of the rudder.



Once you get it rolled somewhat close, cleco it, match drill, and pop rivet.



Done!  This one took 38.3 hours.  I sure love knocking these big pieces out.  Now onto the big honkin Horizontal Stabilizer!

Horizontal Stab start

I stretched out the rudder work because a big block of time was needed for the priming and trailing edge proseal steps.  So to fill it in I started on the HStab.  My dad stayed over after his birthday dinner and helped debur the rear spar.

The instructions have you prime the spar early on, so I did that along with the the rudder parts.  Then you assemble it with some brackets.

Then its time for some fabrication.  You take 2x2 1/8" angle aluminum stock and make it conform to some very specific dimensions, down to the 1/32".  These are the pieces that broke my first bandsaw blade.  I think they came out great though.

Belly-up Bandsaw

My bandsaw setup had been working pretty well.  My dad gave me a pretty old 3-wheel Delta that I remember when he got when I was in high school.  I got a good metal blade for it.  It was noisy as hell with that big blade but I cleaned the wheels after every use and seemed to be OK.

That was until the Horizonal Stabilizer attach brackets.  They are 2x2 1/8" angle aluminum.  Got halfway through the first one and the blade snapped in two.  And there were two spots with severe cracks that were ready to go at any minute.

I don't screw around with the wrong tools, its just not worth my time.  So made a trip to Northern Tool in Davenport IA while the kids took their nap and got this beast.



This sucker weighs 200 lbs, and chews thru metal like, well, an industrial bandsaw.  Had a helluva time putting the base on by myself.

Detour over.  Build on!