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PmWiki /
HorizontalStabilizerAmount of hours spent on horizontal stabilizer: 48.5 February 15, 2008 Finally got a chance to hang up the horizontal stabilizer! I used a hook from Lowes which is normally used to hang a hose on.
 
December 25, 2007 - 2.5h My first milestone has been reached: I finished riveting the horizontal stabilizer!
Do you think this thing will fly? I do! (and our Leo Argo does too)
 
This was a X-mas day well spent and the finished HS is the best present a man can wish for :-)
December 23, 2007 - 4h Well it's true: this tungsten bucking bar is amazing! After a week from home (I had to go to CA for work) I've been able to rivet the skins on both sides of the HS; and it was amazingly easy. Seems like I will never need the other bucking bars again :-) I had to drill out three rivets, because they didn't come out nice, but that's not so bad for my first time rivet experience. Here are some pics:
I've riveted the rear spar to the assembly and will hopefully be able to finish the HS tomorrow. Since the rest of the work can be done with the squeezer, that seems realistic.
December 15, 2007 - 2h I've started to rivet HS-707 on the left skin. Pretty hard and even harder after finding out that I don't have the right bucking bars for the job (all to big!). The rivets on the leading edge side are impossible to get in with the bars I have. I've done what I could do tonight and ordered the small tungsten bucking bar from cleaveland. That one should be able to get me in the hard-to-get-to places I hope (and they say that when you start using it, you will never look back. 
December 13, 2007 - 1.5h Couldn't do much yesterday, because I had to go to Toronto all day and evening for work. Tonight I was able to put the front spar structure together though. It was quite tricky to rivet the HS-405, 702, 404 together, especially in the corners, but after carefully measuring and trying, I think I did an okay job.
Tomorrow will be HS skin time and the first time I will use the rivet gun (after some more practice on scrap metal of course!).
December 10, 2007 - 3h Primed all the HS rear and front spars and the HS reinforcement bars. And guess what? Woohoo! Tonight I've riveted the rear spars and the reinforcement bars together and put the hinge brackets in. The first riveting experience (albeit with the pneumatic squeezer, this greatest tool of all) of my life was a good one indeed. Need a torque wrench though to get those bolts on with the right amount of torque. Guess I'll have to order this thing online soon.
December 9, 2007 - 2h After a long day at IKEA where, together with some furniture for the house, I bought a clothing rack to hang my parts on (made the hooks myself from some steel wire), I finally got some priming in tonight! First I sprayed alu-etch on the parts, followed by rinsing with water, followed by some dusting with the zinc-oxide spray can (the yellow stuff that I bought at Aircraft Spruce). I marked the parts with a label on the rack, because I was not sure if the primer was going to make my markings unreadable. I've also dusted the inside of the skins a little, because I scratched them up a little bit when using the C-frame. Here are some pics from tonight:
The white brackets in the back are from the VS and still have to be primed.
I also deburred the VS rear spar and started deburring and edge finishing the VS reinforcement bar. Will continue that tomorrow and have the VS parts ready for priming.
December 6, 2007 - 2h I was able to dimple all the skins with help of the C-frame. Since there was not way I was going to get to the holes on the leading edge with the frame, I used the close-quarters dimple die set with the pop-rivet gun. The dimples are not as nice, but will do the job. Unfortunately I messed one dimple up :-( The skin shifted while I was hitting the shank and thus the hole is not nicely centered in the dimple. I wonder how I can correct this situation or if I will have to live with a not-so-nice-looking rivet in the left HS skin. That's it for tonight, going to bed. This C-frame dimpling is pretty tiring stuff!
The arrows point to the dimple I messed up. My camera is old and can't focus that close, so it's not that clear.
December 5, 2007 - 1h Got 1 hour of skin dimpling in tonight. I did all of the edge holes of the HS skins and will have to start using the C-frame tomorrow when I do the rest of the skin holes.
December 4, 2007 - 2h More edge finishing, deburring and dimpling. Dimpled all the spars and ribs. Have started to prepare the ribs for simpling by taking some of the protective material around the holes off with a soldering iron.
December 3, 2007 - 3h I took the HS apart and started deburring, edge finishing and dimpling the ribs and spars. Didn't get quite so far to do all of them, but got quite far with it. And I really love having this pneumatic squeezer! Dimpling is really an easy task with that tool. And fast too! Will continue with the rest of the structure and the skins tomorrow.
November 30, 2007 - 1h Mostly working on our bedroom ceiling tonight, but I got a chance to put the C-frame table frame together.
November 29, 2007 - 2h Mike came over tonight and helped me drill the holes for riveting HS-405, 404 and 702 together. This was actually quite an easy task with the angle drill and Mike's help, but next time I won't pilot drill the 405 holes, because it will be easier to drill them from the 404 side. Mike warned me for this already many weeks back, but I forgot :-(
First picture of me in action :-)
November 28, 2007 - 3h Again a productive night. I put the right stabilizer together and drilled all the holes in the skin. Also did all the drilling on the left HS. And what does it look like together? Like this:
Tomorrow, the angle drill that I ordered from Brown Tools should arrive, so I can finish both sides of the HS by drilling the holes to rivet the HS-405, 404 and 702 together.
November 27, 2007 - 4h Tonight was pretty productive: I've cleco'd the skin on the left side of the stabilizer, fitted HS404 and 405 in the structure, drilled holes in the flanges of HS404 and HS405 and cleco'd them to the skin, drilled the two holes in the rear flange of HS405 and cleco'd them to the rear spar. Hey, this things actually starts to look and feel like a horizontal stabilizer!
November 26, 2007 - 1.5h Fluted some on the ribs today and cleco'd them together with the front and rear spars. Started to look at how to drill the HS-405 and 404 ribs and cut the 404's so that they will fit in between the front spar reinforcement bars.
November 25, 2007 No work done today except working on a ceiling in my house that has to be prepared for repainting. BUT, Mike did manage to get me a flight in his dad's RV-4 today. This was the first ride in an RV for me and oh man, you should have seen that big grin on my face when we pulled up from the runway at 58M and even more when Bob did a roll high over Chesapeake Bay. Now I really can't wait to get this plane finished! Pretty unproductive building day, but a very productive 'RV feeling' day :-)
November 23, 2007 - 3h Trimmed the inboard ends of the HS-702 front spars parts and bend the tabs to 6 degrees to line up with the bend reinforcement bars. Match drilled all the holes on the tab (incl. the one to 3/16 dia. (#12) as shown in the A-A view. Also countersunk the holes in the reinforcement bars (watch out you do this on the right side!), but I will have to wait dimpling until the adjustable set holder for my squeezer arrives next week; I noticed yesterday that I could not squeeze rivets nor dimple skins with the pneumatic squeezer because the distance between the heads is to far. Thanks to Mike for pointing out the set holder piece... I've ordered the zinc oxide primer from Spruce so I will be able to start doing some of that too when it arrives.
November 22, 2007 - 3h Happy Thanksgiving!! Today I started working on the front spar assembly. I mostly worked on filing the ends of the two reinforcement bars down and think I did a decent job on it.
The bending of these bars was a whole lot easier than I thought it would be:
And last but not least, here is a picture of the whole front spar:
Looking forward to continuing this tomorrow!
November 21, 2007 - 2h Went over to my friend Mike's house to get a chance to learn some riveting skills. We put the hinge bracket and bearing together after having drilled out the bad rivet I did yesterday and I got a chance to use the rivet gun and a bucking bar on a piece of scrap metal. This was great practice! Mike got me some zinc chromate from a marine shop on his way back from work, but I might order some of the zinc oxide spray cans from Aircraft Spruce tomorrow (since it is less toxic and seems to hold just as well).
November 20, 2007 - 1h I've been practicing with the rivet gun today and things haven't been going too well. Also tried to put the first rivet in the hinge brackets/bearing combination and that went pretty bad as well. Will have to drill that one out and do it again. I will ask Mike to come by and show me the skills...
November 19, 2007 - 2h Today I've cleco'd the hinge brackets to the rear spar and drilled out the holes in them.
Also mounted the middle hinge brackets together with the bearing, drilled out the holes around the bearing and brackets (first time I've used my air drill yeah!) and cleco'd the whole bunch together.
I'll have to buy something to prime parts soon (haven't bought anything yet, but am reading up a lot on priming) and probably also have to order the powder coating touch up kit from Van's since I managed to make a scratch on one of the hinge bracket.
November 18, 2007 - 1h After spending last week at the SC'07 conference in Reno, Nevada, I've drilled the holes (using #30 drills) in the rear spars and rear spar reinforcement bars using the drill press.
November 8, 2007 - 2h Spent my first two construction hours on polishing the rear spar reinforcement bars, rounding edges and corners and cleco'd them to the rear spars for preparation of drilling.
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