Title: Horizontal Stabilzer Done!
It's all done finally (except for the fiberglass tips). Nothing special to share, just more of the same, squeezing lots of -3 rivets with the hand squeezer. Slowly worked my way around the rest of the outside, the tips and the interior portion of the skins. To get the last 4 rivets on each of the top and bottom of the tip rib as well as the last rivet on the nose of the interior section, I had to switch to the 4" no hole yoke which worked great. With all the skin rivets set finally, and what a nice feeling that was, the last items were to set the four remaining rivets in the back of the spar doublers that attach the rear spar to the inboard ribs and then finally blind rivet the rear spar to the two aft middle ribs. I messed up one of the 4 universal head rivets but was able to quickly remove it and set a new one without any problem. Last step was the 4 blind rivets which took me a few minutes to find in my hardware drawers as I've only ever seen these pop rivets once before when I was inventorying the kit. I was starting to get worried that I didn't have them but eventually I found them in one of the many drawers and set them without issue. So that's it! The H stab is done finally. Looking back it took just over 13 months and about 100 hours of build time to complete. Lots of learning and frustration but also encouragement for what's to come. That being said I'm looking forward to starting on the vertical stabilzer soon just for the change of scenery so to speak! Final task for the H stab is to remove the rest of the vinyl covering and come up with a place to store it in the garage. Back to work!


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