And on to the elevators - 4 hours

Well it seems my cold is worse today. I really didn't feel like working on the plane but I somehow managed to drag myself to do a little bit. My whole goal is to move all the empennage along so that I can prime as much of the pieces as possible in one shot. I decided to move on to the elevators.

I cut up the stiffeners and marked them all out. It was a bit of a pain to figure out what was what, but after working through it they all fell into place.  I first did all the major cuts on the bandsaw. Then trimmed everything down with the sanding station, and then cleaned up and rounded every edge with the 3M wheels.

I then cut and cleaned up the edges on the hinge doublers. Cleco'd them to the E-702 spars. 

 I then worked on the E-703/704 ribs. Flutted, checked, and good to go. I also marked out the right lead counterweight. I have some concerns with cutting the lead weight and also fine tuning the balancing. I guess I have a lot of research to do in the coming days.

P.S. having a 3 year old hang out with me slows down the build, but it is a lot of fun watching him and the joy he has in trying to help....I really want to foster his spirit!! 

The left HS....Road block - 2 hours

It's a very poor start to the weekend. I'm starting to get sick with a bad head cold and winter is on the way. Not much time to work on the plane as I need to get the yard taken care of. I began to assemble the left side of the horizontal stabilizer. much to my relief the skin cleco'd to the structure very well. I began to mark out holes to drill into HS0005 and HS0006, but I made a slight slip up and did not line up the aft centerline and drilled the pilot holes in the rear spar resulting in holes that were just a bit inside of center in the HS0005 rib. Silly me.

I decided that since I had to order a new R-904 from a slip up a few days ago....I though why not just order a new HS0005. So I stopped for the day and I will pick up in a few days.

Completing the drilling of the right side HS - 5 hrs

I had a decent Friday. I cleaned up the garage a bit. I have a storage locker now so I can put the Porsche away for the winter along with everything else that's in the way and make a permanent home to work in the garage. Now only to deal with the coming cold!!!

I started off buffing the ribs to ensure that I don't scratch up the skins. I then cleco'd the HS section together (left side) 

Took a skin out and cleco'd it on. Something was just not right. Everything lined up well enough, except that the HS-707 rib sat off the skin about 1/8" on one side. I just couldn't get it to lay down right. I removed the cleco's and tried again. Little better....but not right. So I switched to the right side HS assembly. Same skin....everything cleco'd up really nice. (Muhhhaaahahahah) Well....1 side is good. Let's hope the other side works out later. 

 I should note that I removed the blue vinyl from the inside of the skin before I started cleco'ing. I read on the forums somewhere that leaving the film on can sometime cause havoc in lining some things up. I can see how it can play a part, and after the issues I had with the vertical stabilizer, I removed the film.Once I had the skin cleco'd on I started in on the HS-00005/00006 ribs. I went very slow....very methodical with lining things up. It's really tough to get the HS-00006 rib to sit nice and tight into the nose of the skin. But I found that using an allan key in the grooves of the rib, I could slowly work at pulling the rib into the nose as well as getting the rib straight. after messing around, I ended up drilling the #40 holes as shown in section D-D of the HS plans. Thank God that I didn't screw that up!!! nor did I have ANY issues with edge distances. 

 I also ended up getting HS-00005/00006, HS-702, HS-710 & HS-714 nice and tight!. It took a long time to work at it, but  I can say that everything turned out very well. 

Tinkering - 2 hours

Took an easy evening. Been very busy at work and the motivation to get out in the garage was low. I cut the hole in the front HS spar for the electric trim cable. I then scratched my head on where to put the hole in the rear HS spar. A quick check on the forums notes that the cable for the electric trim routes up and over the rear HS spar....Moving on. 

I decided to countersink the Vertical Stabilizer spar (Where it meets the fuselage) and the Horizontal Stabilizer (Center portion where it meets the HS-710/714). I cut a small piece of aluminium sheet and drilled a #40 & #30 hole and dimpled them. I used this little homemade template as a guide to check countersink depth to ensure that both parts nest well.

 It took me a while to slowly get the countersink depth down to where it needs to be. I can see where folks recommend extra countersink cages so once you have one set....you leave it as-is.

A handy little tool

I have to say a great tool that has become so handy is my Steadtler circle template (Found in the drafting section @ Staples). Its an old school template from the days of manual drafting. I find it really great to use on the project on things like minimum edge distances, layout, center lines, etc.