Other Stuff-NEW!
August 2005 Empennage Vertical Stabilizer
8/15/2005
Today is my birthday, and therefore was a little limited on how much time I could spend on the airplane. But, I did find a small amount of time to get started on the Vertical Stabilizer. I started by clecoing VS808 to VS803, VS410/411/412 hinge brackets to VS803. Then I final drilled the holes in VS410, and started to finish the ribs, starting with VS706.
.75 hours
8/16/2005
I get the feeling that the VS is going to be pretty easy. Probably shouldn't have said that. I started tonite by finishing up the ribs, then fluting them. Then came the clecoing of the skeleton assembly. I final drilled 410/411/412 and 808 to 803 to #30. Then final drilled the ribs to the front and rear spars to #30. My friend Jim Cunningham called me about this time. He wanted a hand at fitting his right HS skin on his Sonex he's building. It looked good, and he said he'd take it from there, so I headed back home. Here's the VS as she sits tonite.
1.0 hour
8/19/2005
Well after three days of inactivity (not by choice), I got back to work on the VS. I cleco'd the skin 801 into place, final drilled the skin to the skeleton, and uncleco'd everything in preparation for deburring fun. My wrist has been hurting this evening, so I decided to call it quites, and deburr tomorrow or Sunday. I think I will invest in a pneumatic cleco gun...Brit says go for it! Okay!
1.25 hours
8/21/2005
I thought tonight was gonna suck because I knew I would be deburring the whole time, but I realized that if I just do the web deuburring, and save the flanges and the skin for when I get the Burraway tools (they're on the way), it won't be so bad. After I deburred the webs of the skeleton, I moved on to cutting the lightening holes in the spar stiffener. It was time consuming, but easier than I thought it was gonna be. I hope that pack of Burraway's arrives tomorrow!
2.0 hours
8/22/2005
More mundane work tonite. I finished up the deburring of the flanges and skin with my new Cogsdill Burraway tools! What a great thing this is! You still have to hold up the drill, so that takes some effort, but it's much easier and quicker. Also deburred the hinge brackets, the old way...Then I countersunk the spar stiffener, 808. I thought I did the wrong side, but it turns out the wholes match up so well either way, that it doesn't matter. I then dimpled the ribs, took a break to eat, and came back out to dimple the skin. I'm thinkin' about the DTRT pretty hard right now. Also dimpled the lower portion of 803PP.
2.75 hours
8/23/2005
Not much action tonite. I prepped everything for priming, then primed starting with the spars, then the ribs, then the skin. I didn't mask off the skin for the mating surfaces this time. Instead, I just sprayed along the rivet line, and it came out looking nice.
1.5 hours
8/24/2005
Didn't have a lot of time tonite, but I had to try out my newest tool! My pneumatic cleco tool works awesome! I love this thing! No more cramping in my wrist from installing those hundreds of cleco's with the pliers!
.25 hours
8/25/2005
Tonite got a little frustrating, but turned out fine in the end. I started by clecoing all the remaining holes in 803 to 808. Then I started riveting the 470 4-6 rivets with my new pneumatic squeezer. All was going well with those until I tried to squeeze a 470 4-7, and I realized that my sets were too long. The squeezer achieves full power when fully deployed, and with the dies being too long, it couldn't get enough pressure to squeeze 'em. Well, it took me a while to figure this one out, and I got a little frustrated thinking that my pneu squeezer was not working. So anyway, I bucked those couple of rivets, and while I was not even on the gun, I bumped it with my hand, and it fired a shot into the spar. Not enough to do major damage, but it marked it. Arrgggghh!!!! That sucks! But, no damage, and it won't be seen, so I'm movin' on. I need to get a 1/8th set to get the right pressure to set those longer rivets.
The flush rivets will have to wait 'til tomorrow. I did have to drill out two, but I'm gettin' good at that, so no biggie.
1.50 hours
8/27/2005
Today was a great building day! I started off by finishing the riveting on the rear spar. I did have one setback today, as I realized that I forgot to dimple the spars. In order to get to the holes in the rear spar (since the stiffeners were already riveted in place) I had to modify the female 3/32 dimple die. So, I'll probably have to buy another one of those. Bummer, but had to correct the mistake. Moving on, I riveted the ribs to the front spar, then cleco'd the skin on. Since my riveting partners (dad and wife) are busy today, I could only rivet the top and bottom edges of the skin on. Tomorrow, we'll finish the VS.
3.75 hours
8/28/2005
My dad came over to help me finish up the VS this morning. Since I had the tip and root already done, we dove right in to the spar and rib rivets. No problems to report from today, everything went as planned. After he left, however, I realized that last night I had riveted the holes that were supposed to remain open for the fairings. No biggie, just drilled 'em out. Just a waste of good rivets though. I then squeezed the remaining rivets to close up the VS with the rear spar in place. Pneumatic squeezers are just incredible!
2.0 hours
Vertical Stabilizer Done
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