Closing and Finishing the Vertical Stabilizer

After completing the horizontal stabilizer in a previous work session, I decided to continue on and finish the vertical stabilizer.  The Tech Counselor came out this morning and approved all my work so far, and that means its safe to close these guys up and mark them as done!  I … Continue reading

Assembling and Riveting the Vertical Stabilizer

Tonight I worked about 4 hours and completed the Vertical Stabilizer, except for the rear spar, which I am leaving off until the EAA Tech Counselor can come by and take a look at my work.  This will give them access to view and check my riveting and assemblies.  Once … Continue reading

Riveting the Vertical Stabilizer Rear Spar

I worked about 2 hours tonight on the vertical stabilizer rear spar. I also spent a few minutes coming up with a way to mount my horizontal stabilizer on the wall to keep it safe and out of the way.  For about 2 bucks in hardware, here’s what I came … Continue reading

Vertical Stabilizer deburring and metal finishing

Tonight I simply finished up all the metal prep work on the vertical stabilizer. I deburred all the holes, and then finished all the edges on the ribs, spars and skins. The spar doubler I spent a good bit of time on getting it smooth since its a heavy piece of aluminum. I started on my bench grinder to break the edges, and then finished them off on the scotchbrite wheel. I used a deburring tool to round off the edges of the lightening holes and then use a scotchbrite pad to smooth those down. It came out smooth:

Then I finished up the night by dimpling all of the holes, while skipping the ones destined to have nutplates for the fiberglass fairing. I used the DRDT2 for most of them, and the squeezer for a few, and finally the pop rivet dimple die set for those last two in the nose rib.

That wrapped it up for the night. I don’t have any work backlogged on my bench because I am waiting on this weekend so I can scuff, clean and prime the horizontal and vertical stabilizer parts/skins. I am spraying outside, so I need a day with plenty of daylight.

Only a few photos from tonights work, since it was mainly metal prep. Heres what I took: https://goo.gl/photos/kEVxThYQk7GBvHFf6

Hours Worked: 3

Vertical Stabilizer metal prep

Tonight I mainly focused on metal prep on the vertical stabilizer. I disassembled the stab, and then deburred all the holes. Then I marked which holes on the VS-808PP doubler and VS-803PP rear spar that needed to be countersunk / dimpled. I used my DRDT-2 dimpler to set the dimples in the VS-803PP, and then used a micro-stop countersink cage to machine countersink the holes for in the spar doubler. After a few test fits to make sure those two parts fit flush with each other, I moved on. It came out pretty good:

I then removed some strips from the rivet lines on the skins so I could deburr the skin, as well as removing all the remaining plastic from the other parts. I also finished the edges of all the lightening holes in the ribs and doublers. Tomorrow I will work on finishing the edges of all the pieces and then dimpling the skeleton, then it will be ready for cleaning and priming this weekend.

Not a lot of photos, since there really wasn’t much to take photos of, but here’s the photos from tonight work: https://goo.gl/photos/Ah54BATLQMPghYVg7

Hours Worked: 3

Vertical Stabilizer assembly

Tonight I figured I would start on the vertical stabilizer. I have both my horizontal stabilizers ready for scuffing/cleaning and priming, but I don’t want to do that until a few hours before I am ready to prime. With my work schedule running until 5pm, and getting dark at 5:30, I just don’t have the time to setup for priming during the week. So, I am planning on doing that this weekend.

In the meantime, I figured I might as well start the vertical stabilizer, so I can have it ready for priming at the same time I do the horizontal stabilizers and save some time and mixing, and do them all at once.

The vertical stabilizer was actually really easy to assembly and get ready for metal prep. I don’t know why Van’s doesn’t start the kit with this piece since its so easy to do.

I first started out by assembling the VS-808PP and VS-803PP. Then I clecoed on the hinges VS-410PP, VS-411PP and VS-412PP to the rear spar assembly. Once assembled I match drilled everything to a #30 except the very bottom holes in the bottom hinge, which will be drilled during the fuselage assembly.
After that, I fluted and prepped the VS-404, VS-405, VS-406, and VS-407 ribs and assembled them to the rear spar. Oddly enough, the instructions didn’t say exactly to also assemble the VS-702 front spar but I took it as a given since Van’s called for the skeleton to be assembled. Once I had everything assembled, I ended up with a nice looking skeleton for a Vertical Stabilizer! I then match and final drilled all the assembly’s as called for with a #30. This is what it looks like:

Next, Van’s called to cleco on the VS-801PP skin to the skeleton. This skin went on much more easily than the horizontal stabilizer skins! I double checked everything was in alignment and clecoed both sides together, skipping a hole between clecos. I decided to only remove the blue protective plastic from the inside of the skin so I get a good fit and proper alignment against the spars and ribs (which I had also removed the plastic from). It will be scuffed and primed in the future anyways.

Once the skin was cleco’d down, I matched drilled everything using the smaller #40 drill bit in all the skin punched holes. I had previously marked all my parts with a sharpie, and noted their orientation so I would be good to go when I disassemble the stab for priming. Here is how it turned out:

That’s about all I could get done tonight. In 2.5 hours I completed the drilling and assembly of the entire vertical stabilizer! This is a good place to stop, and tomorrow I will pick up by disassembling everything, making sure its all marked, and then deburring, edge finishing, and dimpling all the parts to prepare them for priming. I will get the vertical stab primed up with the other parts this weekend.

Here’s a link to the full album of tonights work: https://goo.gl/photos/1BmasXXJaBHai3Ko7

Hours Worked: 2.5