Empennage - March 2005

37 Hours Spent in March
 
3/4/2005 4h Skinned up the other side of the horizontal stabilizer, and cut four wood forms to set the assembly upright. I also mounted and drilled the HS-404 and HS-405 inner ribs on the left side. I also drilled out all of the holes on the bottom of the left skin. I think that I need a new method for getting these together. The nose ribs were at an angle, and a little tight, so I ended up scratching the inside of the skin pretty bad in a couple of places. 
 
3/5/2005 4h Drilled out the other three sides then disassembled the skins and the frame. Sounds like a quick job, but it took a great deal of time. Also, both yesterday and today I've noticed a significant increase in the amount of water in the air compressor and filter. I've drained both the tank and the filter assembly, but I need to watch it. After everything was put together, I also noticed a little bit of the HS-702 that needs to be trimmed. I'm constantly learning with this project. For example, I learned you should not let an assembly rest on clecos in the skin. I've got several scratches. I guess there is no chance for a silver, paint free aircraft. =)
   
3/7/2005 0.5h Spent just a little time tonight. Removed the clecos for the frame, and deburred the holes on the ribs. Definitely need some touch up priming. I probably won't have any time to spend on this project until either late Friday or the weekend. On the positive side, my grad class is done this week, so I'll have more time moving forward.
 
3/11/2005 1.5h After a riveting (bad pun intended) performance of Beauty and the Beast at Westview high school, I slipped in an hour and a half of work. Deburred the front and rear spar, as well as the right skin. I switched to the cheap electric screwdriver I picked up at Harbor Freight the other day for deburring the skin. Works faster than the hand tool, though the drill gets heavy after awhile. I also deburred the edges on both the right and left skin using the deburring tool, and running over the edge with a Scotchbrite hand pad. The last picture is where I polished out a few scratches from fitting the ribs.
 
3/12/2005 6h Over several sessions today, I finished deburring and dimpling the ribs, spars, and skins. I again used the electric drill at a slow speed to help with deburring. I then switched to the hand squeezer with the dimple die in it and worked my way down one of the spars. I decided to switch over to a method I learned at the Synergy Air class last fall using the hand squeezer in the vice grip upside down. This is like a mini C-Frame, except that the yoke is small enough so that you can fit the ribs and such easily. In addition, it has the advantage of not having to balance so many objects by hand. I worked this way through all of the ribs, and most of the rest of the spars. I then finished off the spars with the squeezer free hand, and worked my way around the holes on the skins that I could reach with the squeezer. Finally, I moved on to the C-Frame. I certainly would be better off if I built up a little table with carpet to stabilize the part, but for today, Katy was willing to help out a little. This was her first involvement in the project. 
 
3/13/2005 9.5h Busy day. Again I worked over several sessions. Today holds both good news and bad news. The good news is that I was a speed demon and am basically done with the Horizontal Stabilizer. The bad news is that I was a speed demon and am basically done with the Horizontal Stabilizer. This has taught me that now that I have the hang of things, the speed is going to pick up. I need to place that quick-build order soon, so I suppose I 'm going to be forced to fork over some dough. The day started out simple. I took the skins out and cleaned them first with soap and water, then with an Aqua-prep low VOX solution. Less toxic supposedly. After they were dry, I put blue painters tape covering the holes on the outside. Not strictly necessary, but since I don't know what exterior primer I'm going to use, I want to make sure there is not a conflict with the NAPA 7220 I'm using inside. I sprayed the inside of the skins, concentrating on the areas with holes. You'll note that I did not cover all of the area that was covered with the blue stuff until this morning. After painting, I made sure to re-label the skins.
 
Following a break to wash the cars with Katy, I riveted in the HS707 nose ribs into both skins. This just started the day rolling. One break for lunch, and two more in the evening for dinner and to sit with Katy for an hour, otherwise all the time at work. Finally stopped around 1:30 a.m. No clock in the garage, so I stopped when my body let me know it was tired. I had a couple screw ups during the day. The worst was riveting the nose rib on the right skin, and the rivet gun walked a little. It left a divot in the skin. Other things from today, you will see the pop rivets in action. Super easy. Also you will see a post I screwed into one corner of the table and wrapped with duct tape and some cloth for padding. This was simply to rest the assembly against. I also remember/learned the trick of the blue tape on the rivet gun and bucking bars to avoid scratches.
 
Finally you will see the completed HS, minus the rivets to connect HS-706 to the rear spar, and the HS- 405 on both sides. These would require the rivet gun, and it was too late to make that much noise. You'll note that I missed the comment about leaving some of the innermost holes open on the front top 404 rib. These four are marked with X's and can be drilled out when I need to attach the empennage fairing much later in the process.
 
3/14/2005 1.5h Curses. My joy turned to dismay as I set one of the last rivets. On the one that attaches the HS-704, HS-705, and HS-702 pieces, I mangled a rivet. Drilled it out, mangled it again. Drilled it out, mangled it again. Drilled it out, and not only mangled the new rivet, but also the hole. One last attempt, and then I stopped. I'll contact Van's to see if I can just drill it out and put a short bolt through there.
 
3/15/2005 .5h Just spent a little time today. I pulled the parts for the initial steps on the Vertical Stab. Clecoed some things together, but no serious action. I emailed support, but no answers yet.
 
3/16/2005 No time spent on the project today, though I did get an email back from Ken Scott for the mangled rivet:

"Well, if your putting a -4 rivet in it, it is already #30...so you'd have to drill it to 5/32 or 3/16. Just put a little doubler behind it, drilled with a clean #30 hole, and use a slightly longer -4 rivet.

Next time you damage a rivet, just leave it alone. The difference in strength is negligible and you've already discovered what can happen if you try to drill it out."

Sound advice. I'll cut some of the scrap HS-702 from my first big screw up to make a doubler plate. 

   
 3/19/2005  Morning started out with at least some aviation related activity, if not directly on the project. We were going to see the Spruce Goose at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville and end up in a car accident along the way. See the trip report for pictures.
   
 3/20/2005 4.5h Spent a few minutes before we left to pick up Katy's Mom to drill out the bad rivet, and cut a small doubler plate from the left over HS-702 that I scrapped earlier. I'll set that aside for the next time I've got the primer out.

After we picked up Katy's mom and had lunch, back at the house, I vegetated on the computer for a few hours. Though I was specifically surfing around other builder's sites, I should have been working on my project. 

I finally got off my lazy butt an did some work. Made a fair amount of progress for the time frame. I match drilled the rear spar, prepped the ribs with edges and fluting, put together the frame and match drilled that, and then also match drilled the skin to frame. I tried match drilling with the blue stuff on to help avoid scuff marks. Looks to have worked pretty well. Once I had everything apart, I used the ruler and soldering iron to remove the blue stuff in prep for deburring and dimpling on the skins, and deburred the holes on all of the ribs and nose piece. Not a bad day.
 
 3/22/2005 0.5h Not much time, just a quick trip up and down the VS spar with a deburring bit. Still much more deburring to go before dimpling and riveting. Probably won't get to it all until the weekend.
   
 3/26/2005 1h Finished deburring the spars and spent some time cleaning up the edges of all the parts. I also did some general shop cleanup. It's raining so everything is indoors. 
   
 3/27/2005 3.5h Okay, I've now prepped as much as I can before priming. I need the weather to clear up so I can take these parts outside. I deburred the skins, dimpled everything, and countersunk the flush attachments on the bottom parts of the rear spar doubler. I might have to start into another subassembly as I wait for some good weather. Now would also be the time I place an order for quickbuild, or at least the slow build wings, but I'm going to wait for a month or so to build some cash.