Vertical Stabilizer Riveted

Vertical Stabilizer is all but done. We have one rivet at the forward tip that we couldn’t set. We’ll try bucking with a little piece of metal we’re borrowing from a friend and also order an AT633 bucking bar as I’m sure we’ll run into the need for it again soon enough. We also aren’t going to start the fiberglass work until the end. Perhaps we’ll work on that while waiting for the Wing Kit to show up.

The little 3/32″ rivets buck so much easier than the 1/8″, it’s amazing. Donna ran the bucking bucking bar while I ran the gun. We only needed to rill out 3 rivets, all of which cooperated. I highly recommend using rivet tape on the machine head, kept the surface from being marred. We reused the 8 little strips for all the rivets on each side. I also highly recommend wrapping the bucking bar with tape to prevent scraping up your freshly painted Ribs/Spars.

Next, back to the Horizontal Stabilizer!!

Vertical Stabilizer Work

Today we finished deburring and dimpling all the holes in the skin. This takes far longer than it would seem. We also riveted the Vertical Stabilizer structure together. These 8 rivets proved to be a bigger challenged than I imagined. For one, the #30 rivets are pretty tough little buggers. For two, I haven’t riveted very much by hand (with bucking bar) and I couldn’t get my pneumatic squeezer on any of the rivets. Also, one of the ribs ends up making a concave angle with the front spar, not easy to get a bucking bar in there with the flange angles. Perhaps tungsten bucking bars that are smaller and heavier would make this easier?

In any case, the first rivet we tried to set started to clench so we decided to seek help instead of messing parts up. Our good friend and RV adviser gave us a hand. He had an alligator-type of pneumatic squeezer and AN442 flat rivets (in lieu of the universal head AN470’s). His squeezer could fit into the tight corners we were having a problem with. In a couple of the corners, it was still tricky and we had to drill one out and ended up needing to enlarge the hole and use a larger rivet. The AN442 rivets are a lot easier to work, I’m not sure why these aren’t the standard.

Tomorrow we’ll be ready to start riveting the skins together and hopefully have our first finish component. At the end of the day, looking at the pictures, it sure does seem easier than it actually is!

Rear Spar Riveting

Got home a little late from work but still managed to get a few hours worth of work done. Today I riveting up the vertical stabilizer rear spar. I used my pneumatic squeezer and yoke for all but 2 rivets that the bottom most rudder brackets interfere with the yoke itself. I’ll need to buy my back riveting plate so I can back rivet these. Alternatively I could use the flush set in the gun and a bucking bar. Choices Choices!

Also, above the flush rivets on the drawing where it calls out where the fuselage bolts up to, there’s a hole on the centerline in my parts that’s not on the drawing. I’m not sure if this is a third hole that will get a bolt later, or if it is supposed to be drilled out to run wires though or if it gets a 470 rivet. Will call Vans and find out tomorrow if I can’t find it on the forums.

Vertical Stabilizer Back Into Pieces

No pictures today since it would look like we’re going backwards in progress but a lot got done. We took apart the Vertical Stabilizer and started deburring. The deburring can’t end soon enough, and this is only the very beginning. I got my bench grinder squared away. Now it has a medium scotchbrite wheel on one side, and the narrow, fine scotchbrite wheel on the other. Donna started building a “spray booth” out of a box fan. We’ll use a house A/C filter on the box fan so we can spray in the garage without getting paint particles on the car/motorcycles.

Started Vertical Stabilizer

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.