You
know... we've drug some things out, but the bright side is we get to
see the completion of TWO sections this weekend! Yesterday
we finished the rudder; today we finished the vertical stabilizer!!
Can't remember if I mentioned it already or not, but the reason
it took so long for me to get back to the vertical stabilizer is
because of clecoes and oversized holes. A little while back I
went to cleco the skin on the vertical stabilizer and the clecos would
just pop right out of the holes. Long story short, the holes are
ever-so-slightly oversized and the clecoes (as was suggested to me by
numerous people on the VansAirforce forums)
were of the 'cheaper' variety! So, we ordered some "Wedge-Loc"
clecoes from Cleaveland Aircraft Tools (other suppliers carry them too)
and waited for those to arrive. In the meantime I finished up the
rudder. Welp... we've since received the Wedge-Locs, and finished
the rudder... so here we are... time to get back on the vertical
stabilizer!! Time to finish this puppy!! (The Wedge-Locs
work GREAT by the way!)
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(6-6 step 2):
Riveting the skin on the vertical stabilizer is a puzzle.
You have to rivet the first few sections of rivets in a specific order
or else you wont be able to gain access to other rivets...
seriously! So the first step was to remove the bottom nose
rib. This allowed us access to the middle nose rib. Its
interesting... the middle nose rib turned out to be the toughest part
of this thing to rivet, but if you build this thing according to plans,
its the very first thing you rivet! Kind of intimidating!!
Anyway, Once the nose middle nose rib was done, I noticed I marred the
thing up in a few places so I used our powder-coat touch up paint to
cover the scratches I left in the primer. The touch up paint was
quicker than mixing up some of the primer.
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(6-6 step 3):
After the middle nose rib came the top rib, but only the portion
forward of the front spar. Angela wanted a piece of the action
too so I let her do this one. She then threatened me with the
squeezer so I let her do the bottom nose rib too ;-)
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(6-6 step 5):
After all the nose ribs were in place, next came the entire front
spar. Relative to the rest of the airplane this isn't that many
rivets, but it sure seemed like a lot at the time! All of these
were done with the rivet gun and bucking bar. Here I've got the
rivet gun on the outside, and my left arm is inside the vertical
stabilizer where I'm holding a bucking bar on the underside of the
rivet. The rivet gun basically pounds the outside of the rivet
while the bucking bar bounces off the backside of it. These two
forces basically work against each other to compress the rivet clamping
everything (the skin and spar) in between the two ends. These
rivets are tiny, tiny, but strong... and there are a ton of them!
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(6-6 step 6): Once the
front spar was completed on both sides, then came the middle rib behind
the front spar, and then the remainder of the top rib. The middle
one had to be done with the rivet gun, but the top one could be done
with the squeezer. Until I get a little more skilled with the
rivet gun the squeezer is my tool of choice! This is a shot of
the middle inspar rib from inside the vertical stabilizer.
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(6-6 step 7): Now
the the middle inspar rib is complete, all the ramaining rivets can be
done with the squeezer (yeehaw!) Next step was to put the bottom
rib back in place and rivet it in. Once that was done the final
skin attachment was to the rear spar. After the skin was
completely attached there were about 30 more rivets that attached the
flanges of the rear spar caps to the flanges of the rear spar.
After those we could stick a fork in it... it was done!!! Here
I'm using the squeezer to set the 1/8" rivets attaching the bottom
inspar rib to the rear spar.
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And... drum roll please... here
they are... Our completed vertical stabilizer and rudder! Some
day these babies will be controlling the yaw in our very own
airplane!! Ahhh we can dream can't we... Is it too early to
make airplane noises yet ;-)
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