Brief Description: Building the Vertical Stabilizer
I purchased the practice kit from Vans and spent about 12 hours learning to drill, dimple, deburr, bend and cut various parts (skins, control surface,stiffners, training edge stiffners), I also used several techniques to rivet using the proactice kit. I would recommend any kit builder who has no experience to purchase the practice kit to gain experience.
I started my actual building process on the Vewrtical Stabilizer (VS). A good friend and fellow RV-7 builder from the local area (Brian Carroll) recommended the VS as a tarting point because it is the easiest part of the empenaage to build and is a good confidence builder. I'm glad I took his advice.
The first deburring and preparation work took 2.5 hours
Clecoing the VS-808 spar doubler (step 1) and drilling the VS401 hinge brackets (step 2) took about 45 minutes.
Practice kit from Van's...well worth the $
VS rib and spar assembly clecoed
VS Front spar assembly clecoed, deburred and dimpled