Vertical Stabilizer

Vertical Stabilizer

I finished riveting the VS on Wednesday and Thursday. I needed to finish up the rear spar now that I realized the 410 and 411PP brackets go on the rear side! Putting the brackets on proved to be a bit more of a challenge than I was expecting. It was a tight pit with the bucking bar and I ended up getting more practice drilling out a few rivets. Im having trouble with the pneumatic squeezer setting the larger 4-4 rivets, I called Cleveland Tools and got some advice, but it still doesn't seem to want to work correct for me. I'll need to keep working on this.

After I finished the brackets I put on the ribs. Again more of a challenge than I was expecting. I had to decide between holding the bucking bar in a tight location and having easy access for the rivet gun or the vise versa. I chose to have the bucking bar on the tight side. I need to get better at controlling the it when Im setting rivets. I am scratching my primer off :( But I worked through it and finished the VS frame!

Next I started to work on getting the frame into the skin so not to scratch the primer. I also taped over the holes that aren't suppose to be dimpled or riveted so I don't make that mistake.

I did accidentally dimple 2 holes in the skin that the plans didn't call for. I used the squeezer to undue this, not sure if that was a good idea or not? Time will tell.

Putting a flat set into the squeezer and letting it small the dimple back out seemed to work ok, the holes are enlarged now after all this and I do wonder about the skin cracking in the future from fatigue. 

Riveting the skin on actually was easier than I expected it to be, I was even about to get the squeezer to properly set the AD4263-3.5 rivets that is could reach around the edges! Finished the VS with the last pop rivets connecting the rear spar to the middle rib and called it done!

The little primer you see on the skin was a spot a got a good gouge in that I had to work out and it removed the pure aluminum layer at protects the metal from corrosion so I figured I would prime it to protect that spot until I need this in 2.5 years during final assembly. Maybe I should paint an animal on the tail like Frontier?

 Vertical Stabilizer 5.5 Hours