It's Full Size

Sebastian helped start prepping the parts for the horizontal stabilizer. We removed all of the blue plastic and relabled with blue Sharpie. Plenty of skin was also labeled.

Started using the super sticky 3M VHB tape on the rudder trailing edge. This tape is $30 for 5 yards so I'm using a single length to cover both sides. The 1" wide tape mostly covers both sides. I started with it on the right skin clecoed in place. Then I weighted it down with soft dive weights that I have plenty of. These are basically heavy bean bags filled with lead shot and seem perfect for applying even pressure on the trailing edge to get a good stick out of the tape.

I managed to get as much done on the rudder as possible while waiting on the replacement stiffener. All of the parts are primed. The spar is fully assembled and all of the stiffeners are back-riveted to the left and right skins.  Moxie helped me several times over the weekend with "organizing" parts in scavenger hunt fashion around the shop and Sebastian helped me drill the countersinks in the trailing edge on the drill press. That was one of the more difficult steps actually since it requires the modified countersink. I used a scrap piece of trailing edge taped halfway under the trailing edge to get the holes correct and along with the trailing edge guide from Cleaveland Tool . Aligning everything is tricky since the holes need to be drilled perpendicular to the cord line while the dimples need to be drilled flush with the skin. I'm regretting not taking pictures of all of that. 

Well I officially created my first piece of scrap. While at the tail end (no pun intended) of the hundreds of dimples in the rudder my foot slipped on the squeezer pedal and I wound up with this gem.  The male die wasn't seated in the hole but the squeezer was perfectly happy to punch right through the stiffener. I now have a very nice perfectly formed, deburred and primed back scratcher or tickle-stick for the kids. Van's makes ordering replacement parts really easy online and this piece only set me back $6.25 plus shipping. I also have to pay the time penalty while I wait for it to arrive and for me to go through the forming, deburring, priming and (careful) dimpling process again before I can finish assembling the rudder.  I also picked up a can of SEM self-etching primer for quick spot priming when I don't want to haul out the respirator and spray gun setup. It's expensive, but it has a good reputation and goes on really easily. I can already tell it isn't as s...

The rudder is starting to come together. I have all the pieces cleco'd together for final/match drilling, deburring, priming and dimpling.  I also got a chance to play with my new toy: a pneumatic cleco tool . For these large skins with hundreds of clecos that you have to move constantly while drilling this thing really is amazing. I can go much faster than I can with a pair of pliers and my wrist isn't hurting at the end of the day. I decided to pick this up early in the build so I could get as much use out of it as possible rather than waiting until I suffered and wished I had it earlier on. 

Put the final rivets into the vertical stabilizer today. Yay the first section in a long journey is now complete! I did struggle a bit getting the rivets on the forward edge of the very top riveted. There just wasn't enough room there to get the squeezer in there or even a bucking bar. Eventually I needed to grind down the tip of my 3" squeezer yoke to give me just enough clearance to squeeze the rivets. Also got a lot of practice drilling out those rivets. Now I understand why I've seen so many builders with ground down yokes on their squeezers. In the end it worked out fine and the rest of the skin and rear spar went in with no trouble. I did have to pull out the rivet gun for a few rivets, but I'm getting pretty comfortable with that now so no biggie. Now on to the rudder! Those last rivets at the vert tip were the worst. One goes in easy, but then there's not enough clearance to get the second across from it.  Ground tip on the squeezer yoke gives just enough c...

Time to start dimpling the vertical stabilizer skin which means I need a good setup for the C frame. I have some 1/2" plywood and 2x4s left over from building the EAA workbenches. It turns out that those two things together are exactly the height of the die holder on the C frame. With a $7 floor mat from Lowe's that puts the table at the same height as the dimple die. The table is 23" deep by 48" wide (because that's the size of the leftover plywood). I used wood glue with 2" screws to hole the wood together and some spray adhesive to hold the floor mat to the top. The C frame slides under the table. There's a cutout at the back to clear the bolts that mount the arm to the base. There's also a cutout in the front the same size as the dimple die holder. I used a drill and jig saw to cut that. Finally, there's a cutout in the carpet just the size of the dimple die that I cut with a razor blade.  Worked like a charm dimpling the first skin. I could ...

Assembled the front and rear/main spar for the vertical stabilizer tonight. These are the first rivets on the airplane so they're kind of a big deal from that regard. Otherwise, no big deal at all. Everything went in super easy with the squeezer and looks great. It took some concentration to make sure the correct rivets were used everywhere, leave open holes were left open, and everything was assembled in the correct orientation. I expect plenty more of that to come.  First rivet driven in the VS-702 vertical stabilizer front spar. There's a doubler on the forward side (bottom) that you don't see here. Eventually this piece will stick out of the bottom of the vertical stabilizer and help anchor it to the empennage.  I also fully assembled the main spar including the doubler and the hinge brackets for the rudder. I used painter's tape to make sure I didn't rivet the "leave open" holes that will be used to attach the spar to the rest of the verti...

Scrubbed the vertical stabilizer parts yesterday and primed them today. 7 ounces of primer would have been perfect. Scrubbing skins in the bathtub is going to get difficult. This was one of the smaller ones and it barely fit. I might have to figure out a way to clean those outside. The tub is still great for the smaller stuff, but the laundry sink might be even easier. The outdoor setup for priming worked really well. Overall I think these turned out really good. Priming outside with the Hobbyair is the way to go. Zero exposure to some pretty gnarly fumes. I have an 80' hose on the Hobbyair and I used it all with the pump well inside the house.  My wood rack makes a convenient stand for skins. I'm not sure the masking tape was necessary, but I don't want any over-spray on the exterior surface.  I'm really happy with the AKZO primer. I turned down the spray volume quite a bit from the practice kit and there's no overspray at all. ...

Assembled the vertical stabilizer frame and covered it with the skin. I think it would be nice to look into the air powered cleco tool. Match drilled everything and we're ready to deburr, prime dimple and rivet. I'll either have Popeye grip or carpal tunnel at the end of this - maybe both. The skin is a bit difficult because it needs convincing to form over the frame just the tiniest bit to line up the holes. Fortunately the Cleaveland kit came with the perfect tool for this in the 1" Tapered Alignment Punch. I'm more impressed with their tools the more I use them. Vertical Stabalizer Skeleton  Skin in place. Broke my first tool putting this on. I bent a Cleco before I realized that I had a  Tapered Alignment Punch that's perfect for lining up the holes.  This is just cool seeing the whole thing together.  I can't wait to take this picture without the Clecos.  This is the 1" Tapered Alig...