Posted by A good chunk of time put in today on the Vertical Stabilizer. Started by doing some match drilling (#30) of the Spar Doubler with the Rear Spar and Spar Caps. Since the rudder brackets are on backorder, I’m trying to figure out what steps are OK to skip and which are OK to move on with… I have to hold back on some of the match/final drilling because of this, until the parts arrive.
Did some machine countersinking of the thick rear spar doubler, and it went nicely.
Then I deburred the edges of the ribs and front spar, and cleco’d the entire skeleton together. Now, after removing the vinyl from the Vertical Stabilizer skin, I was able to cleco it in place over the skeleton.
I cleco’d every hole, since this is such a tight fit, it really helped pull the skin into alignment. And even though my skin and most of my ribs are final hole sized, there is one piece that isn’t. So I have to final drill a row of rivet holes, and I thought it necessary to have the entire skin fit properly first.
Builder's Log 