Brief Description: Drilling the Vertical Stabilizer
The tungsten bucking bar arrived yesterday so I put it to good use and finished the riveting of the horizontal stabilizer skin. The results appear better than my previous efforts but I also changed the air pressure and my riveting technique so it's difficult to tell how much to attribute to the new bar. I'm going to ask Pat or Joe to check my work to this point before I rivet the rear spar to the assembly. I used the pneumatic squeezer with the 4" no hole yoke to squeeze the rivets along the edges. It worked like a charm. I moved on to the vertical stabilizer and clecoed the spar doubler to the rear spar. I need to purchase a fly cutter to cut the lightening holes in the doubler. I clecoed the hinge brackets on but misread the plans and put VS-410PP on one set of holes too high. I figured it out after I match drilled one of the holes in the wrong spot. Fortunately, I appear to have an extra set of VS-410PP in the kit so I selected another bracket and did it over, this time correctly. I fluted and straightened the ribs and finished the edges and then clecoed them to the front and rear spars. Next step was final drilling all of the holes in the spar, doubler and hinge brackets to #30. I clecoed the skin to the assembly and drilled/matched drilled to final size all of the holes. I marked the pieces and then disassembled them for deburring, dimpling and edge finishing. Unfortunately, I let the skin get away from me while in the DRDT-2 dimpler and I got one hole oversized. Good thing I don't want a polished airplane. I ordered "oops" rivets the other day and I think this will take care of the situation. In the meantime, I need to get a real camera out and take some better photos. I've been lazy and taking pictures with my iPhone.
