Today we finished riveting the left side of the horizontal stabilizer. We were making such good progress, we riveted all the holes on the inboard side. We will have to drill out the holes where the empennage fairing attaches to. The tip rivets on the outboard side are a pain to get to. Squeezer won’t fit and we are doing the best we can with the bucking bars we own.
We’ve finally gotten back to a little bit of riveting. We almost have the left side of the horizontal stabilizer riveted up. It was a pretty beautiful day though so after Donna hit her head on the table we decided to call it a day. Once I get back from work travel we’ll continue on. Just one more row of bucking and then squeezing left to rivet on the left side. Then we get to repeat it all on the right side.
This past weekend, we started riveting the horizontal stabilizer. You start by riveting the center nose rib to one side of the left skin, then you add the center rear rib without the front spar in place & end rib. Cleco everything together to allow the other side of center nose rib to be riveted. Luckily Donna has tiny arms so she’s able to buck rivets much easier than I could! Also, I could see myself not being able to keep the rivet gun perpendicular if I had my arm all the way inside the HS. This would cause dents in the skin around the rivet. Not good.
After the center nose rib is riveted, we removed the center rib and cleco’d everything back together with the front spar assembly installed. I think the HS will rivet up quickly once Donna is back from work travel!
N928DD 