Through the help of my dad (Prime King) we were able to divide and conquer a lot of work today. He was able to help me prime all the parts that attach to the two main spars of the horizontal stabilizer (doublers, etc.) and get them ready to rivet together. The nature of the next step in preparing the skin on the horizontal stabilizer for the first time requires that this all be permanently assembled and not just clecoed. So prime and assemble we did!
Primed parts laid out to dry. Time to clean up while they do just that.
After the parts dried, it was on to the assembly stage. I was particularly excited about riveting together this spar as it enabled me to rivet in place the pieces I fabricated out of angle aluminum. They went in place perfectly and aligned flat and level on the bottom once in place too. It was an incredibly rewarding feeling.
Not really a ton of pictures as there really weren’t a ton of parts to assemble in the end. Overall, lessons learned include definitely being diligent on marking parts with a permanent marker. Keeping the brackets aligned helped make riveting go much more quickly. It also kept all of the final drilled holes aligned and ready for riveting.
I’m pretty excited to get started on the ribs and then putting the skins on. This will be a time when I’ll get my first glimpse of the real scope and size of this airplane. Exciting!
Total time today = 2 hours
Total time empennage = 51 hours
Total time aircraft = 51 hours