Assemble 10/25/2021 – 1.8 hours 10/26/2021 – 2.0 hours 10/27/2021 – 1.9 hours 10/28/2021 – 1.4 hours The vertical stabilizer final assembly starts by clecoing and riveting the ribs and front spar together. Riveting with the pneumatic squeezer appears to be the preferred approach at first, but the angles and access quickly rules that technique out. I turned to the rivet gun with a double-offset cupped rivet set, which worked very well. I had excellent visibility of the gun and bucking bar with the assembly secured to the work bench. The riveted skeleton gets clecod in the vertical stabilizer skin, and then flush riveted together. Riveting starts at the intersection of the forward spar and center rib, and then continues up toward the tip and then down toward the root. It helps to have a long reach for this step because you have to hold the bucking bar without seeing it all the way to the front spar. I laid the vertical stabilizer on its side on top of a couple 2x4s wrapped in towels and clamped to the bench. That was the easiest way for me to reach inside to buck the rivets. The flush rivets along the spar and center rib came out well, with just a couple of very minor blemishes. Riveting the vertical stabilizer skin continued with the top and bottom ribs. Those areas are easily accessible with the pneumatic squeezer. Six holes on each side of the bottom rib that will be used to attach the empennage fairing are not dimpled and should be taped off to avoid inadvertently riveting them. The main challenge are the forward-most holes in the tip rib due to the very tight space. I didn't have room for the thinnest squeezer set, so I fashioned a small steel cover for the hole in the 3” yoke to act as a flat squeezer surface. I could just barely fit that into the space to set those rivets. The final step in the Vertical Stabilizer assembly is to rivet the rear spar into place. The pneumatic squeezer worked really well to rivet the skin to the spar flanges, and to rivet the spar to the tip rib. I switched to the rivet gun to buck the rivets from the spar to the bottom rib because access for the squeezer wasn't great. The finishing touch is 3 blind rivets to connect the spar to the center rib. [3x Rivet Gun, 1/8” Cupped Double Offset Rivet Set, 1/8” Cupped Straight Rivet Set, Flat Rivet Set, Tungsten Bucking Bars, Pneumatic Squeezer, 3” Yoke, Flat Squeezer Set] ** Note: Sheet 10-05 specifies match-drilling and final-drilling several holes in the bottom of the Vertical Stabilizer rear spar, which will be used to attach the VS to the fuselage. The aft bulkhead (F-01412A/F-01412B) is used as a template to drill those holes. My aft bulkhead is already installed, which makes access to those holes very difficult. Rather than risk mis-drilling the holes and ruining both the new VS and the empennage, I decided to order a set of aft bulkheads to use as a template. I think I'll have much better luck with the accuracy of the CNC holes from Vans than trying to drill straight holes in a dark and confined space.