Horizontal Stabilizer
One day Im gonna realize how much time it takes to get things done! I set the HS skins into the jigs that I made and then riveted the nose ribs that I already installed in the skins to the front spar and then started working on the riveting the skins to the spar and ribs.
Once I started riveting the skins I noticed that I had the skins on the wrong sides! There is a line of rivet holes that i didn't countersink so a plastic fairing could be screwed into them in the future. Since I had the non counter sunk skins and ribs flipped from each other I decided to use the squeezer and flatten the countersink in the ribs to match the skin that was on each side.
This seemed to work fine, I just hope it didn't create micro-cracks in the rivet hole that will crack later in the future under the vibrations of a flying aircraft!
Now that I got that mistake "fixed" I am moving forward and riveting the skin. I started with the skins in the cradles on the floor and sat in my chair all hunched over working on shooting the rivets. This is less than ideal, my back was not happy about it. i started riveting from the leading edge back, mostly so that the opening would stay large longer for me to get my arm into the part with the bucking bar.
After finishing 1 side of the HS I moved the part horizontal on my bench and used cardboard boxed to hold it up. This was a WAY better position to rivet in for my back. It did initially lead to more sloppy technique with my bucking bar causing it to dig into the primer a bit. Once I adjusted I was able to be more careful, the work flow also seemed to go faster in the orientation.
Done for the day, what I thought would take me 5 hours to rivet is now on hour 9 and I have 1 side of 1 half to rivet still. Mental note for the wings, they are going to take forever to rivet!
Horizontal Stabilizer 9.0 Hours
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