About
Build log for an RV-10

By
Jae Chang
web@jline.com

Contents (Index)
These are links to the major kits for the project.

Section 8: Horizontal Stabilizer Finished (Almost) (15 / 146 tail and total )

Completing the riveting on the HS required some serious effort. The initial rivets required bucking the rivets on the nose ribs, which took some bit of getting used to again. As a last resort, i tried using the 10" long special -10 bucking bar, which actually worked the best for reaching way down to those nose ribs.

Revelation #11. On a part like the HS skins, definitely start work on the bottom, or least side. Thus, rivet, dimple, drill, etc. on the bottom skin, so that you are up to practice. All the kinks should be worked out by the time you begin work on the top skin.

Above are views of the inspar ribs.

The outboard rivets thru the inboard root rib, rear spar, and nose ribs were a pain to get to. I was eventually able to navigate the pneumatic squeezer into the space.

All of the shop heads are on this side, except for the first two rivets, i placed. you can see the manufactured heads.

Riveting the stringers on the top and bottom skins also required a fair bit of work, to find the right body position, bucking bar, bar position, etc. Also, the bottom stringers had to be riveted blind, so I ended up buying a small inspection mirror to verify these rivets were properly set.

Horizontal Stabilizer is complete... or is it?

With the HS lying flat and level on the table, i noticed that the left front spar attachment bracket, was not sitting quite flat. The right side of the bracket was raised just slightly over the left side.

After debating whether this is too subtle to worry about, ultimately i decided the best course of action is to just redo the spar attachment bracket.

UPDATE 5/28/2006

The redo on the horizontal stabilizer front spar attachment bracket is done. Go to redo page

posted at: 19:06 | path: /aviation/build/airframe/tail | permanent link to this entry | add a comment