Finished mock up of the HS - 2.5 hours

I received the new HS-00005 rib and the R-904 Bottom rib from Vans today, so I picked up where I left off on Sunday. I got to work on fitting the HS-00005 and HS-00006 to the left side horizontal stabilizer. Everything went well and I was pleased with the results. I Cleco'd everything up and match drilled the ribs/spars as per the instructions.

 Match drilled the skin and then removed it. I then finished drilling the holes inboard of HS-00005/00006. I have to say that Looking at the holes in HS-710/714 they all seem a little bit off. Not perfectly lined up. When I think about it...the drilling sequence is all different. some holes are drilled from the front, some are thru the back. Some are marked out and drilled, and some are drilled through existing holes. Coupled with the fact that I am drilling from a hand held palm drill and I may be just a few degree's off from level....It is foreseeable that some holes may not exactly line up. It feels odd to me. I will throw up a post on Van's Airforce and hopefully some folks can let me know if there is cause for concern. I'd really hate to go back and do the horizontal stabilizer all over again :(

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.