Vertical Stabalizer

Here we are getting ready to do some plane building.

I got to know the rear spar well in this project. I don't think we could have started with a more difficult section of the plane. This thing has three reinforced parts in places along with hinges. I could barely cut the first pieces of metal - the so-called caps.

Match drilling the skins to the rear spar here. Lots and lots of drilling.

Ahh, yes, the priming. My new paint gun clogged up on me and sprayed glops of primer all over the parts. I tried fevershly to clean them off. By that time, the gun had further clogged and I resorted to using a brush - smearing the glops of primer everywhere. I had to clean everything off with primer and start over with just a brush.

Putting the rear spar back together after drilling, sanding, deburring, and priming.

The skeleton is shown here being wrapped by the stabalizer skin. It was tricky to get the nose ribs into the fold of the skin without scratching it all up.








Everything is back together and ready for riveting. By this point I realized my squeezer wouldn't reach all the rivets and I was beginning to get worried about how I was going to do with the rivet gun on my shinny skin.





I had to drill out the first seven rivets I put in. Jeez, I felt like quitting, but it worked out just fine. The first six rivets were because I put a part on in reverse and the seventh rivet got squeezed between the parts. Here you can see down the rear spar with the hinges for the rudder.




I seriously need to work out more. These 3-4 rivets just aren't that big.









As Borat would say, very nice! Vertical stabalizer is complete in around 30 hours.