Back in business — Working on Rudder and VS   May 30th, 2006

After spending a week on vacation, it took me another week or so to catch up at work and home. I got back to building this memorial weekend.

I primed the Vertical Stabilizer parts, and rather than just waiting a day and a half, I figured I’ll give the primer at least three days to dry. Compared to the Horizontal Stabilizer, I was VERY pleased with how the primer came out. I used a lot less of it, and it went on very evenly. I think the secret is to stir the bottle with the drill press, rather than just with a paint stirrer.

While the stuff dries out, I started on the rudder. I made rudder stiffeners and deburred all of the surfaces. Today I match drilled the stiffeners to the skins.

After drilling, I cleaned up every hole by hand. The skins are incredibly thin, and I figured I would go right through them if I used my deburring tool. Some of the holes still weren’t completely smooth, so I used a scotch-brite pad to clean up all the bits of aluminum. So far so good…
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Starting on the Rudder   May 4th, 2006

At this point I need to prime the Vertical Stabilizer before proceeding. Since I’m going out of town in a couple of days, I decided to start on the rudder. So, I spent about an hour fabricating rudder stiffeners…some pictures when I get back!

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Dimpling Vertical Stabilizer Skin   May 3rd, 2006

Today Fabiola helped me dimple the holes in the Vstab skin I couldn’t reach with the squeezer. We used the C-frame, and it is really a two-person job. One holds the skin in place and the other whacks the C-frame with a hammer. Fabiola is the official whacker 🙂

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Back to working on the Vertical Stabilizer   May 1st, 2006

After finishing and hanging the Hstab on the wall, I went back to the Vertical Stabilizer. I spent about an hour taking it apart (I had last match drilled the skin to the skeleton) and deburring some of it.

Since the lower section of the rear spar needs flush rivets, I dimpled the spar and countersunk the reinforcement bar.

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