TC visit, HS & VS are done!
Hours: 2.1 | Posted in Horiz. Stabilizer, Vert. StabilizerStarted out the afternoon with a visit from EAA Tech Counselor Mike Hilger, who was gracious enough to drive all the way out here and then refuse to accept any gas money. He reviewed the progress I had made so far: the horizontal & vertical stabilizers, as well as the rudder parts I’d started on. My riveting turned out to be alright, and he answered some questions that I had about scratches, dings, and primer spraying. He looked at my broken rudder counterbalance rib and said that if I cleaned up the edges of the area I removed (due to having cracked it when fluting), it would be fine. We also discussed tools, and techniques for back-riveting/double-flush rivets. He recommended that I call him for another inspection during the assembly of the wing skeleton; and he’d be happy to come out and help with the closing of the empennage TE’s if needed.
After Mike had gone, I addressed some of the touch-up work he recommended, like removing some dings from the HS spar edges…they happened while squeezing in that slightly cramped inner rib/spar/attach angle area. I also dabbed some touch-up primer over some spots inside where my bucking bar had scratched the primer. One last check inside the assembly for forgotten clecoes, tools, spare rivets, etc, and some compressed air to clean out the dust & metal shavings, and the rear spars were clecoed on. I pulled the pop rivets for the spar-rib attach, and squeezed all the rest. Allison used her nimble little fingers to place the rivets in the dimples, working ahead of me with the squeezer. I bolted on the center elevator hinge, but didn’t torque it since I don’t have an in-lb torque wrench that is good for such a low torque range. With that, the HS & VS are officially done.
[Note: this is the first entry that's being counted in multiple categories, rather than making a separate post for the work in each category. When the time gets added up in the category menu, it will count the entire time in each category, but only once in the "Total Hours" line; so while the individual category will end up slightly inflated, the total count will be accurate. Kudos to Dave Parsons (RV-7A) who wrote the WordPress plugins that allow the display of hours worked.]
