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Kupe's Zodiac 650B
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Date: 2-7-2013
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Number of Hours: 2.00
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Manual Reference: 6-T-2A & 6-T-3A
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Brief Description: Finish Stabilizer, Continue Elevator
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Big day today as I put the horizontal stabilizer behind me for now. Was a straightforward job of riveting all the the top skin on then riveting in the tip ribs on the bottom skin and the ends. I left the top trailing edge unriveted, per the directions, to facilitate attaching the elevator hinge.
Continuing with the elevator, I unwrapped the skin only to be once again pleasantly greeted by another Zenith part created using their Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) router, which precisely cuts and drills all the pieces and parts that go into this aircraft. The difference is significant. This morning I simply placed all the parts in their general, final configuration, then lined up all the pre-drilled holes between the skin and pre-drilled rib flanges/channel assembly, inserted the final rivet-sized clecoes, and voila! Initial assemby finished in about 15 minutes.
Before Zenith's use of the CNC router, I would have had to clamp the rib ends to the elevator skin and manually drill through the skin pilot holes to create matching holes in the rib end flanges. Then I would have to repeat this process along the top and bottom flanges of each rib through the skin. Once everything went together, I would then have to re-drill through each and every pilot hole to open them to their specific final rivet-sized holes. Then I would have to cut out the trim tab section of the elevator skin and trim off the rib that's in the trim tab notch. That would've taken 4-6 hours instead of the 15 minutes it actually took. Thanks Zenith!
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The bottom side - riveted the tip rib on both ends.
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The top side - all finished. Zenith's computer-drilled holes make for nice and straight rivet lines.
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The elevator with center channel, ribs, and skin all cleco-fastened together.
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