Section 6 Complete!

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 clearance to get some tight rivets. 

All complete including the rear spar.

There are 3 blind rivets in the rear spar to center rib that are the last step to the build. 

Top hinge bracket and top rib rivets. Even the skin rivets turned out fairly consistent. Definitely some areas for improvement, but I should only be getting better. 

Bottom of the HS ready for attachment to the elevator and empennage. 


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