I needed to build some new shelves to hold the HS and the Rudder. Previously I had the rudder hanging on the wall but I realized the HS was almost too big to hang anywhere in the garage. So a few trips to the home improvement store produced a couple sets of shelves to store the parts on. With that done, it was time to go downstairs and pull all the parts for the vertical stabilizer (minus the skin). It feels good to be starting on a fresh part after spending over a year on the horizontal stabilizer. It also brought memories of just how this whole process goes. First steps were to remove the vinyl from the front and rear spar and then cleco the front spar and spar doubler in place as well as cleco in place the brackets that hold the rudder. I couldn't for the life of me get the #30 clecos to go through the brackets. It was driving me nuts until I remembered that the brackets are powder coated which leaves the pre-drilled holes a little bit undersized. A quick once over with a #30 bit and everything fit like it should. This was a good stopping place for the evening as the next steps are to prep the ribs which involves flattening them with the fluting plyers and making sure the flanges are perpendicular to the rib.