It was as a really busy work and life week so I haven't made much progress.
I'm still working the inboard ribs but I'm about to wrap that up which
means it will be time to match drill all of the holes for the skin.
I've read several different approaches to locating the holes in the inboard ribs
and I decided a right angle drill with a shortened bit was the answer.
This worked great going from back to front but the drill is still too
big to go the other way. So I think I'll get the aft rib/spar assembly
drilled up to the right size, take the skin off (again) and then go the
other way.
This is looking at the back of the spar with the aft rib removed:
Here you can see the front and aft ribs in place and how tight the working area is:
If it seems painfully slow, it is. But I'm building confidence in my
methods as I go and taking some time to get used to the thought process
of the designers. The right side should go together fairly quick.
Day 4:
Today was a frustrating day with little progress. There are two sets of
inboard ribs, a tip rib and an aft rib in the horizontal stabilizer.
They come completely devoid of holes so they must be located via
dimensions on the drawings. I'm not a huge fan of that approach because
the location will only be as accurate as I can measure on uneven
surfaces. So I decided to put the skin in place and locate them using
it as a guide. My first mistake was mis-algning one of the smaller
ribs.
This caused the rear spar to be in the wrong location so when I pulled
to try and bring the holes in line it loaded up the outboard rib and
bent it. I haven't pulled it out yet to see how bad it is, but I may
order a replacement tomorrow just in case. Anyway, was able to mark the
location for the mid aft rib before calling it a night.
Day 3ish
I've been swamped with work and school this week but I managed to get a
little done here and there. Today I managed to put in about 4 hours of work. The front spar of the horizontal stabilizer
has all of its parts bent to the required 6 degrees. This was
surprisingly complicated affair since I had to manually create the bend
reliefs for the spar in a precise location to avoid an existing hole
The spar flanges have been shaped as well. The doublers are missing from the first picture. They'll get added back in when I get ready to install the ribs.
I also started prepping the ribs for assembly. This required fluting
the pre-punched ribs to bring the holes back into alignment. The tape
is to protect the inside from scratches. You can see I didn't do it on
the first one.
Tomorrow I will square up the flanges and start marking their locations on the spars for assembly.
Day 2
Not much progress tonight. The elevator bearing has been match drilled and is ready to be primed. I also started on the front spar but my drill died shortly into the effort and my spare battery is dead.
Day 1 - Horizontal Stabilizer Rear Spar Construction Begins
I made a little progress today. I decided to put off deburring parts until all of the drilling was done. I figured the vinyl would help protect from scratches while I'm working. So far there have been no real surprises. The hinge brackets had to be drilled before I could cleco them in place but that wasn't a big deal.
My bench is already a mess. I'm going to have to solve my storage issues quickly before it begins to impede progress.
I've started using clecos as standoffs to allow me to drill with less worry about drilling into my bench top. So far so good.
