Rudder assembly ongoing - 3.5 hours

I started off with dimpling the rudder skins and the counterbalance rib and skin. Then I started in setting the two rivets on either side of the bottom nut plate. I just was not pleased as the head was angled and I chose to try again. Of course since the material was so thick getting the rivet out was impossible without drilling it out. Now the holes where too large. So I opted to go up a rivet size (to #5) and used a #21 drill on the hole. Well..after measuring the edge distance from the reinforcement plate to the center of the hole is 0.241"....closer than the minimum recommendation for the rivet size. Crap! Well time to reason it out. The edge distance issue only exists on the thicker reinforcement plate so I might be ok...I will send an email to Van's and double check if all is good (I will also get confirmation of the oblong hole on the HS from my Dec 22/14 build day) . I decided to forge ahead with setting the remaining rivets.

I then riveted the counterbalance rib onto the spar and then cleco'd/riveted the counterbalance skin. I need to order a set of 120deg 1/8"dies for the CS4-4 pop rivets before I can proceed any further on the rudder.  

Started Rudder assembly - 2.5 hours

Not wanting to face the bitter cold in the garage, I decided to dig out my small air compressor and set up in the basement. I managed to log a few hours with the assembly of the rudder. I dimpled the spar and then set the rivets on the reinforcement plates and nutplates. I finished the top two reinforcement plates and started the bottom one.

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.