Brief Description: Began process to reskin the vertical stabilizer
As noted in the last log entry for the vertical stabilizer, I was not happy with the quality of the riveting on the completed assembly. Therefore, a new vertical stab skin was ordered from Van's and I began reskinning the stab today. I began by carefully drilling out all the flush rivets holding the skin to the skeleton followed by the universal and blind rivets attaching the rear spar. I also detached the mid-rib in order to rebend the small tabs which must be riveted to the forward spar and skin (the tabs must sit snugly against the flanges on the spar to get a good rivet joint). I used a spring-loaded center punch to remove the rivets after the heads were snapped off (works as good or better than pin punch and hammer).
After inspecting the skeleton to be sure it was not effected by the earlier bad riveting, all holes were deburred and redimpled to be sure there was no deformation as rivets were removed. The structure was reprimed to cover any minor scratches from the first assembly and rivet removal.
The protecttive plastic along the prepunched holes in the new vertical stabilizer skin was removed using a soldering iron with smooth rounded tip.
Clecoed the rear spar in place in preparation for assembly with skin for match drilling.
