Here's the front spar after being riveted together:
Here are the HS-405 ribs riveted to the front spar. I couldn't get all the rivets with the squeezer so I had to shoot/buck some. They turned out pretty good.
And now, here's the HS-404 ribs riveted in place as well – these rivets went in with the gun too:
The left side has an extra rivet, as seen here. I hope I don't have to use aileron trim to counteract the weight imbalance. (joke)
Tonight I got the rear horizontal stabilizer spar riveted together. It went pretty well – the pneumatic squeezer is definitely a must-have for this stuff.
Pretty rows of manufactured heads on the exterior side…
…and nice, consistent shop heads on the interior side:
The elevator hinge brakcets get attached, and this sucker is done. The rivet length callouts for middle and outboard hinges seemed a little weird, but I followed the plans anyway. The center hinge bracket gets bolted in place, which means that I got to use the fancy new torque wrench that I sprung for. Any day where you get to use a new tool is a good one.
New left-side horizontal stabilizer spar: drilled, deburred, dimpled, primed, done. Whew. Also touched up the primer on HS-710 and HS-714 while I had on the Darth Vader rig.
In Saturday's post I idly wondered why Van's was having me drill the hole in the front spar for the trim motor wiring so close to a preexisting tooling hole. We'll I'll tell you why it looked weird: because I had accidentally grabbed the rear spar and happily drilled a giant hole through it instead, thus ruining it. Arrgh. That's what I get for not triple-checking the plans and the part numbers. Of course it doesn't help that the instructions don't even mention this particular hole – I guess they're hoping that you'll notice the tiny callout on the plans, but whatever. At least the replacement HS-603PP is only eighteen bucks. I'm going to be out of town for a week anyway, so it's not that much of a setback other than the couple hours it will take me to drill, deburr, dimple, and prime a new spar. Bah.
Today I got the HS parts all dimpled – used the Cleaveland tank dimple dies (which arrived Saturday) on the ribs and spars, and it does seem to make the skin dimples sit down in there better. Then I went out in the backyard and primed all the ribs, spars, bars, and angles while Mary and her folks hung out inside.
Probably they were discussing my warped priorities.
Who needs Star Wars when you're building an RV?
Luke, I am your father!