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Date:  10-14-2007
Number of Hours:  1.70
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  Fabricate and install a new F-810C reinforcing bra

After church and much prayerful supplication, I returned to the shop with the daunting task of ripping out and replacing the F-810C reinforcing bracket. Everything went pretty smoothly. First, I drilled out the dozen or so 1/8" rivets holding the bracket in the fuselage. Once I had the little stinker out of the fuse and on my benchtop, I could really see how the hole we drilled yesterday violated the sacred "edge distance" rule, puting it waaay to close to the edge. We could have simply bolted the horizontal stabilizer in with this hole, but it surely would have cracked out the side later, leaving me with only 3 bolts holding on the tail instead of 4. A general rule of aerodynamics holds that an aircraft in flight should land with the same number of horizontal stabilizers that it took off with. Returning to earth with any less would be unseemly. As they say, it is not the fall that kills you, it is the sudden stop. Now that I had the offending piece exorcized from the fuselage, I set out to fabricate the replacement. This time, I did not follow the drawings (which led to the defective piece) but I built the reinforcing angle to fit the space, like a cabinet maker. I sawed out the part to the general dimensions, and then I sanded and fit, sanded and fit, until it fit right into the spot it was designed for, tight as a tick. With the new F-810C snapped into place, I drilled it to the fuselage, using the holes that were already there from adjacent parts, deburred, primed and riveted everything into place. Finally, I replaced the horizontal stabilizer onto the fuselage and drilled back down through the holes I drilled in the HS spar yesterday. Everything looked good. OK. Once crisis down. Now, I can get back to moving forward.
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This is the old F-810C bracket with the malignant hole on the right

This is the old F-810C bracket with the malignant hole on the right

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