Showing posts with label Vertical stabilizer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vertical stabilizer. Show all posts

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Vertical stabilizer finished

With the elevators and rudder complete except for the leading edges, I went ahead and finished the vertical stabilizer.  Jim and I set the internal rivets with rivet gun and bucking bar, and I finished the perimeter rivets with the hand squeezer.  No surprises here - everything was fairly straight forward.  There are a couple of rivets along the rear spar that are difficult to squeeze since they are located right next to the hinge brackets, but the no hole yoke worked pretty well in those areas.  Once everything was finished, I removed the blue vinyl and hung the completed stabilizer from the ceiling.

Hand squeezing perimeter rivets
Vertical stabilizer finished - ready to hang next to the horizontal stab
Ready for storage

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Vertical Stabilizer work

Compared to the horizontal stabilizer, the vertical stabilizer seems to come together very quickly.  It's probably a combination of getting used to working with aluminum and understanding the plans better - it's nice to see things take shape more rapidly. 

Match drilled skin to skeleton
Priming internal components
Skeleton primed and ready for riveting
Riveting spar doubler and hinge brackets to rear spar
Riveting skeleton together
Final assembly