The forums don’t lie when they say to consider starting with the Vertical Stabilizer. I can’t imagine anything else going together so simply. We’ve surpassed our progress on the horizontal stabilizer. Granted, there’s a lot less going on in it. I can only imagine Vans makes you work the first part so you’re a little discouraged, then throws a softball to inspire confidence.
In any case, we built up the Vertical Stabilizer rear spar. We made sure to flatted the reinforcement piece that came bowed. We also ran the edges of it through the scotchbrite wheel. The scotchbrite wheel is one of the most rewarding tools to use. Part goes in looking terrible and comes out perfectly smooth with no more tooling marks / imperfections. Also a word to future victims, I found it was necessary to drill out the powder coated hinges to 1/8″ in order for the cleco’s to fit.
After that we shaped/fluted all the ribs. This process is starting to go much faster. I have to stop forgetting to deburr before fluting though. It’s far easier to deburr a straight edge than it is a wavy edge.
After final drilling all the #30 holes, we then built up the skeleton and attached the skins.
After we match drilled all the skin holes to #40’s, I couldn’t help but mess around. Looks like an airplane tail! Too bad both the Vertical and Horizontal stabilizer need to be broke down to all individual pieces for dimpling, priming, and riveting before they’ll look like this again:
Not bad for 4 hours of work! We’ll talk to Vans tomorrow about the Horizontal Stabilizer and hopefully I won’t have to travel this week and can keep the progress rolling.
N928DD 