March 9, 2020
Today was all about aligning and drilling but by the time I got home, Paul had one half of the horizontal stabilizer assembled with the skin clecoed on. It was an identifiable airplane part and we’re only two days into the build!!!
While I was at work Paul sorted out left and right side components for the horizontal stab and got started on the right hand side. All the ribs were prepped and fluted and then assembled for initial match drilling. During the match drilling of one of the reinforcement bars (HS-710) a hole ended up in the wrong place. That same bar was also tapered a bit too much in the shaping process. Since it has compounding flaws we’ll be ordering a replacement part. It’s an $18 part, so not a big deal – just a bit of a delay in final assembly of the horizontal stab.
Once the skeleton was ready, the skin went on. He told me it was a bit of a struggle to do alone. It took a lot of force to get enough of the holes to line up with the skin always under tension but he managed it without any damage.
After dinner we both went back out to work on the left side. It was a lot easier to attach the skin with both of us. One person could put pressure on the skin while the other inserted the cleco and it all went pretty quickly. We had the left side prepped and assembled in about an hour and a half.
Once both sides are match drilled they will come apart for deburring and priming. We don’t have any primer in stock yet, so it’ll be a couple days before we can start that process. Overall it’s exciting to see so much progress so quickly.
Cheers,
-Kacy
(Total Build Hours: 14.0)
Very nice guys