HS Complete (well almost) - 4.5 hours

On a bit of a roll from yester day, I set out to complete the horizontal stabilizer. With the lessons learned, I made relatively short work of it. The process of yesterday was repeated and overall everything went excellent. I think if memory serves me, I only used two opps rivets on the right side (I think only one on the left side).  I'm very pleased with the riveting....I am feeling quite comfortable with it now and notice that its best with the bucking bar in my left hand, and the rivet gun in the right.

A setting of 1.5 on my rivet gun with a "1 mississippi" count yields a near perfect set rivet for a -3 rivet. A setting of 3 with the same count is near perfect for a -4 rivet. I am beginning to "hear" when the rivet is set. There is no doubt now that I think I have turned a bit of a corner with the riveting.....Much to my relief.

The horizontal stabilizer is now complete (well with the rear spar, HS0005 and HS0006 not installed to allow for the MD-RA inspection. 

Left side HS complete - 6.5 hours

Finally I have some time on my hands so I dove into the project. I dimpled both horizontal stabilizer skins and made sure to not dimple the top side holes for the fairing. Starting with the left skin, I cleco'd then tried to rivet HS-707 to the top side of the skin. I found that it was difficult to get a solid platform to buck the rivets properly, so I cleco'd HS-706 and HS-708 to both top & bottom of the skin and found riveting HS-707 considerably easier.

I then cleco'd HS-702 (and re-cleco'd HS-708) into the structure and then ran into my next issue. I found that I did not have enough clearance with the blind rivet tool and had an angled LP4-3 rivet between HS-707/HS-708. I drilled out the rivet (which ended up a tad oblong) and then uncleco'd HS-708 to slightly bend it out of the way. (I reasoned that the slightly oblong hole is ok since Vans indicated to me in the past that connection of a rib to a spar was not a major structural item and considering I am using pop-rivets...it was acceptable to proceed.)  I proceeded with the construction as per the plans and ended up completing the riveting the left side horizontal stabilizer.

HS Front Spar complete - 1 hour

Seeing how my rivet selection was limited, I ordered a few varieties from Aircraft Spruce as well as the AN470AD5 rivets that I need to complete the HS front spar. I decided to use scrap to dial in the pneumatic squeezer and made short work of completing the outstanding rivets. I decided to replace one of the AD4 rivets with an AD5 rivet that was opposite the needed AD5 rivet purely for symmetry. Not needed, but it looks better.

HS Front Spar - 3 hours

Work has been quite crazy and not to mention I have also decided to put some time into skiing this winter, leaving little time for the RV build. Tonight I managed to get a little work done on the horizontal stabilizer. I dimpled all of the horizontal stabilizer parts (with the exception of the skins) and started to rivet. I have a tad bit of difficulty getting the pneumatic squeezer set up right. The trick is to set it so that it just under-squeezes the rivet and then it's an easy adjustment to get it dialed in. I think I may need to practice more and create a spread sheet showing the initial measurements for a given rivet size with a yoke/die combination.

The flush rivets were set without much trouble, however the first AN470AD4-7 rivet was squeezed too tight. I drilled the head of the rivet off and tried to pull the rivet out with pliers. Since the material was so thick, pulling out the rivet was impossible. I then had to drill the rivet out with a #30 bit, but resulting in an over sized hole. I need to use a larger -5 rivet. I completed the rest of the riveting with very good results. I only have one rivet that is set a bit close to the maximum (One rivet was not set to my liking, so I managed to do a good job drilling it out. Replaced with another AN470AD4-7 and bucked it...but did it a little too much. It's right on the line for spec)

Priming - Round 2 - 6 hours

I really hate priming. I've tried to avoid it as best I could but I needed to get a bunch of parts primed today. It was the worst weather for it -32deg C. I heated up the garage and set up. Started in on washing, scrubbing, rinsing, cleaning, priming. It is a very nasty process as the pro-Form Degreaser and the MEK are pungent. The 2-part epoxy primer is downright nasty stuff.  It burns your eyes and even with the respirator on, it burns the lungs a bit. It has a tenancy to seep into the house as well. I can't wait till summer when I can do this outside.

I finished priming the HS parts and the rudder parts. I have most of the elevator stiffeners primed too