Finished riveting left skin to forward spar and ribs: 5.2 hours

Finished all the hard to reach rivets on the left skin. I also riveted on the difficult nose rib on the right skin. This operation went better than the left side but was still difficult.

Right skin temporarily in place, ready to be attached to forward spar...

 

 

 

 

Started riveting left skin to forward spar and ribs: 10 hours

I ended up getting a lot done by putting in a long day. I got off to a slow start. Riveting the skin onto the ribs and spar involves some very tight locations.

I also spent about an hour removing an replacing a pull rivet inside the structure that I placed incorrectly. In the course of drilling out the bad rivet the hole was enlarged. Fortunately I had planned ahead for the mistake and I had a selection of slightly oversize CherryMax rivets on hand. These pull rivets are actually much stronger than the ones spec'd in the plans.

I also had one conventional driven rivet securing the tip rib to the spar that I was not happy with so I replaced it. That went fairly quickly. In general most riveting mistakes can be corrected without scrapping the part but the corrections can consume a lot of time.

The other challenge of the day was all the tight space riveting. It took me some time before I figured out a technique that worked for fitting my hands inside the structure to hold the bucking bar.

Tight space but only a few rivets:

 

Starting to rivet the skin to the forward spar:

 

Tight spaces and a lot of rivets ... Slow going at first

 

 

Riveted inboard ribs to forward spar 1.3 hours

The forward spar for the horizontal stabilizer is done. Ready to start riveting the skin.

 

Forward spar assembly:

 

 

Prepped right skin and started riveting: 7.5 hours

Got a lot done today. In the morning I deburred, smoothed, dimpled and primed the right skin. After lunch dad came over and we started riveting together the rear spar. As the afternoon progressed I was able to finish riveting the rear spar and also get the front spar riveted. I used the squeezer for the rear spar and some rivets on the front spar. The rest were done with the rivet gun. No bad rivets. I may touch up a little of the primer later. So far everything is going well.

 

Right skin getting primed

 

Rear spar complete!

 

The front spar was much quicker...

 

Now ready to start riveting ribs and skins.

Deburred, dimpled and primed left skin: 2.3 hours

The left horizontal stabilizer skin is now ready to rivet. In addition to deburring the rivet holes I also finished all the edges with a file and scotch brite pads. All the skins are cut very precisely by a computer but there are still burrs and machining marks on the edges that need to be smoothed.

Ready to dimple the left skin

 

 

 

 

Dimpled horizontal stab structure and primed: 3 hours

This went well. Started out with the table dimpler but the best solution was the pneumatic squeezer mounted in a vise.

 

 

After dimpling I wiped down the parts with MEK and primed with NAPA 7220 self etching primer. Easy to use and very tough.

Primed and ready to rivet...

 

Next up is deburring and priming the skins. Then rivet it all together!

Prepped horizontal stab structure for riveting: 3.5 hours

Nothing too exciting. A lot of the time in the building process is taken up with manual labor like deburring holes and finishing edges. It's tedious but keeps the kit price low.

No photos today.