So I have been busy lately trying to finish up the vertical stabilizer. The kids went back to school last month and this has freed up a lot of time during the day. It has given me a good four hours three to four days a week to get this completed, and I had taken full advantage. So let's jump in.
Deburring and Dimpling - Take 1
After we finished the last section, the entire assembly was cleco'd together, the skins were mounted, and we were ready to start drilling. I quickly match drilled the skin onto the associated spars and ribs and then started the most fun part, taking it apart to do it all over again. I deburred all of the rib holes, deburred the skin, and I got ready for dimpling. I had not used my DRDT yet, so I was excited to bust it out. I got it setup on my bench and made a small adjustment to it because the dies were slightly off center.
I quickly worked my way through the skin and rib pieces. They were pretty simple to work through. One note to future builders, go slow and make sure to go in order. Don't skip around or anything weird because you will forget one of them and notice it later (I missed one!). The actual job of dimpling isn't very difficult, it just takes time to finish. Once that was done, I went to work to completely deburr everything. Deburring was pretty straight forward, I purchased an electric screwdriver to make it easier. This tool was a god send, as you could just hold the trigger and move from hole to hole.
First Big Batch of Priming
After everything was deburred and cleaned up, I sprayed it off with some fresh air to make sure there weren't any metal pieces floating about. After my first try at priming the rear spar, I made some adjustments to my priming setup. I got some frames from plywood sheet and bought some metal wire which I stapled over the top. These were easily laid out over two long pieces of wood on a pair of sawhorse's. This allowed me to manipulate the pieces and spray easily on my lawn. I haven't quite figured out what I will do in the winter, but this works for the rest of the year.
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| My Priming Frames Setup |
The priming went fairly well. I am using the Stewart Systems EkoPrime and EkoEtch products which were well reviewed by Charlie Derk, another past builder in his blog (his blog is linked on my page). The product is not as toxic as most of the other products out there. I like this as I don't need to go as crazy and I think it will be easier to spray inside as needed. The EkoEtch is easy to use, just mix it up in a spray bottle and spray everything. After a quick spray, you scrub it down, and then rinse it off good. One issue I had, I hadn't removed the outside skin blue plastic trying to protect it. During the rinse/etch process, a small amount got stuck under the plastic which I didn't notice. It discolored a tiny section of skin, but was easily cleaned up with some acetone and corrosion protector. This won't even be noticed after paint down the road.
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Priming Session In The Yard.
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After getting the etching all done, I got right to work priming the parts. The primer goes on pretty easy, I sprayed it all once in each direction then the other way. It dried within minutes which allowed me to flip over everything and spray again. It turned out pretty well, but I noticed I had some small sections where it was heavier than others, something to work on moving forward, but everything was fully covered.
Riveting Continues and Skin Riveting
After priming and letting everything set for a day, I got back to work re-assembling the parts. I started to rivet up the rear spar and get things put together for the final time. I wanted to try different things, so I tried using the squeezer for as much as possible and then utilized the rivet gun with an old fashioned bucking bar for the remaining sections.
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| Aft spar riveting |
I had a little issue when I first did the aft spar. On page 6-4, you beginning to reinforce the aft spar with the VS-1017 doubler and the VS-1012 rudder brackets. The directions don't really tell you any specific order to put these rivets in. So I started attaching the brackets first, but I quickly realized I had no way to access the shop head of the middle rivets between the brackets. So I got some practice removing the four rivets in one bracket so I could squeeze those rivets.
After the spar was completed, I got to work assembling the ribs and riveting those. These weren't terrible, but there were some tricky ones to buck/squeeze due to the flanges or other rivets. I think I had two rivets that ended up being unacceptable and had to drill out. I tried to drill them as I did in my class in Atlanta, but they didn't come out as simple. I need to modify and grind down the pliers a bit to make it easier to grip the shop heads after drilling.
After I got all of the ribs done, I got to work with the skin. Once again, the skin takes a bit of maneuvering in order to get things lined up. After it was lined up, I went cleco crazy to make sure things were lined up. Get a good worklight that can shine into these parts, this way you can verify the rivets actually have captured the skin and ribs below. The work light made this pretty easy to do. However, alot of the rivet checking is done simply by touch with the rivet gauge due to the tight spaces in the stablilizer.
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| Riveting the skin on the Vertical Stabilizer. |
It took me about two days worth of working, but I got the stabilizer skin fully riveted on. A few were drilled out but it wasn't too bad. I highly recommend trying to squeeze anything you can, but sometimes the orientation can be challenging. The nice part of the squeezer is you can setup one calibration and squeeze a line in quick succession. The bucking bar is a bit more involved and requires more thorough checking as you build.
So I have completed the entirety of section 6 now with the exception of the VS-1010 bracket as I am waiting for a new torque wrench. I am going to start pulling the parts for the rudder out to get those laid out and prepped. Hopefully next week we can get that started.
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| Completed Vertical Stabilizer |
Things I learned or points for future builders:
- Get a carpet or something soft to "line" the top of your workbenches. The skins and parts can get scratched or cut with too much bumping around.
- If you have the space for a bigger workbench depthwise, go for it. I really wish I had a three foot deep table as parts would fit more nicely on it.
- Organize the parts as best as you can. The worst thing is looking for a part an having no clue where it is. I currently have most of mine in the crate, and need to spend some time organizing them better. I am thinking of totes/bins with numbers on them and a spreadsheet.
- On section 6-4 Section 5, make sure to do the doubler only rivets first, these are the AN470AD4-4. Then do the 4-5 that hold the brackets on.
- Figure out your priming methods early and try to have an established workflow before you get to big batches.
Coming Up Next: Section 7 - Rudder
Time to binge watch some youtube for research first :)
