I started the day off building cradles that Van’s calls for. There used to hold the Horizontal Stabilizer for final assembly. After that I riveted the doublers onto the front spar. I finished up the night deburring and dimpling all the ribs. Tomorrow I’ll get them primed and ready for riveting.
The Horizontal Stabilizer cradles. They'll get clamped to the workbench during final assembly The front spar with the doublers riveted on The ribs all dimpled and deburred and ready for priming The rest of the ribs ready for priming
Tonight I continued work on the Horizontal Stabilizer. Most of the work was on the forward spar. Similar to the work I did yesterday on the rear spar. A lot of back drilling, deburing and countersink. I managed to get all the parts primed before calling it a night. Should be able to rivet the fwd spar components together tomorrow.
Rear spar and doubler after being primed Spar reinforcements after being primed
Today I started working on the Horizontal Stabilizer. Most of the work was on the rear spar. It involved match drilling and the doubler and the spar. Then I primed both of them and riveted them together. Afterwards I match drilled and riveted on the hinge brackets.
Deburring the rear spar The doubler riveted to the rear spar I used the C-Frame to rivet the hinge brackets on The rear spar, doubler and hinges riveted on, with all parts primed.
Today I finished riveting the rudder together. All that’s left is the do the fiberglass fairings. Vans has you circle back at the end and do the fairings on all the control surfaces last. I like that idea, I want the limit the number of times I have to mess around with fiberglass. Next up is the Horizontal Stabilizer.
The rudder all riveted together Another picture of the rudder all riveted together
Today I finished dimpling the rudder parts and countersunk the trailing edge wedge. Next I back riveted the rudder ribs halves on to the corresponding skin. Tomorrow I’ll tackle the dredged trailing edge wedge riveting
A bazillion countersinks had to be machined into both sides of the wedge The rib halves and shear clips riveted to the skin
Today I started the day off with a priming session. I got all of the rudder parts primed. Then I did some fabricating work on the trailing edge wedge. After that, it was on to dimpling the rudder skins and stiffeners. I’ve got a bit more dimpling to do and then it’s on to riveting it all together.
Rudder skins primed Rudder stiffeners are primed Rudder spar and doublers primed Rudder doublers and nutplates riveted to the spar Rudder skins dimpled
Tonight I continued work on the rudder. It was mostly more deburring (I had to debur the large skins) and some minor drilling operatings. Tomorrow I’m going to get everything primed.
Most of the rudder parts all deburred and ready to be primed A few more parts waiting to be primed.
Tonight I got started on the rudder. The first few steps are to some part trimming and a lot of deburring. That took up most of the night. Tomorrow should be a little more exciting ;)
Many of the parts tonight came attached together and had to be cut apart, trimmed and deburred An example of some of the trimming. Van's had really made the tasks pretty trivial with the RV-14.
Tonight I wrapped up the work on the Vertical Stabalizer. All thats left is the fiberglass fairing and some other minor task, but Van’s has you work on that later. So it’s on to the rudder tomorrow.
I used the C-Frame to rivet the spar doubler and brackets on. The doubler and brakets riveted on. At the end of the night, I've got a Vertical Stabalizer!
I jumped right in this morning and started on the Vertical Stabilizer. Each task today took me a few minutes to knock the rust off, and then it was like old times. Todays tasks were:
Match drill, debur, dimple and prime the lower rear spar doubler Rivet on the lower rear spar doubler Cleco together and match drill VS ribs and spars Cleco the skin to the ribs and spars, then match drill all the holes.