March 30, 2020 Stiffeners...... all... day... long. Eight and a half hours of cutting, trimming, deburring, etc. of stiffeners. Nothing really new or exciting on the elevator stiffeners compared to the rudder except some trimming details, its just grunt work to get everything cut out and prepped. Cut out the basic shapes, mark the individual... Continue Reading →

March 28 & 29, 2020 So, it turns out that two stabilizers are only about half of the work in the total empennage. We've still got the rudder and elevators to assemble, so we got back to work. The first step is cutting out the stiffeners for the rudder. This took longer than expected, but... Continue Reading →

March 25 & 26, 2020 More bucking today. Well actually, only really bucking today. I guess that's not entirely true, but most of today was spent on the vertical stab. First was to countersink the spar reinforcement. Post CountersinkingSpot Priming It'd be great if the instructions had you do this before they told you to... Continue Reading →

March 23 & 24, 2020 Since the rear spar was completed yesterday, we finished the skeleton for the rest of the horizontal stab today and and then it was time to tackle the skin. The first rivets of the skin have to be bucked, which is the first time we'll have to buck anything for... Continue Reading →

March 22, 2020 Now that all the horizontal and vertical stabilizer parts have cured for a day we're ready to start assembling and riveting. It was a lovely day in the garage with a steady rain right outside the door. All of the skins use flush rivets, which require a dimple in the skin and... Continue Reading →

March 19 & 20, 2020 The heater finally arrived and like the fierce ball of fire that it is, it is great at heating the garage. We've decided to prime all the internal surfaces, for simplicity and resale value. I had to work today so I left Paul to take the first stab at priming.... Continue Reading →

March 15, 2020 The replacement stiffener for the horizontal stabilizer finally arrived! We re-worked that stiffener up to the point it was ready for installation and then continued with the match drilling that we couldn't do previously with the bad part. After that it was a solid 8 hrs of disassembly and deburring of both... Continue Reading →

March 10 & 12, 2020 While we're waiting on the replacement part from Vans to be able to finish the horizontal stabilizer Paul got started on the vertical stabilizer. Generally it's the same process on a different part - deburr, cleco, match drill, disassemble, and deburr some more. Everything with the VS went pretty smoothly... Continue Reading →

March 9, 2020 Today was all about aligning and drilling but by the time I got home, Paul had one half of the horizontal stabilizer assembled with the skin clecoed on. It was an identifiable airplane part and we're only two days into the build!!! While I was at work Paul sorted out left and... Continue Reading →