Feb 14, 2022     OUT OF PARTS!~ - (10 hours)       Category: Empennage

And just like that, I'm out of parts. Thanks to Ken Allen and Fred Schriver who competed and pushed me to get the empanage finished. All Aluminum parts are used up, just some fiberglass on the tips still to go. Empanage now stored up on a shelf as I wait for the QB fuselage from Vans....

  Feb 07, 2022     upper skins going on. - (10 hours)       Category: Empennage

Dimpled the uppoer skins installed the breaks at the edge assembled the center up piece started riveting the right skins as well

  Feb 06, 2022     drilled the rudder - (2 hours)       Category: Empennage

Vertical stab placement and match drilling. I love it when things look like the final picture.

  Jan 31, 2022     A couple of pages knocked out! - (9 hours)       Category: Empennage

Static lines and ports installed. Transponder antenna wire routed and installed. ELT wires routed and installed.

  Jan 29, 2022     Skins done, nutplates in and rudderstops on. - (7 hours)       Category: Empennage

Finished the skins with my able assistent master builder Fred Schriver Added the rudder stops. and the nut plates

  Jan 27, 2022     rivet rivet rivet - (8 hours)       Category: Empennage

Rivet the side skins inplace. Some help from Fred and Eileen. but over 250 with me holding the gun and bucking bar myself. Thank god for tungesten bucking bars and the rub ring around the flat set on the gun. I was very worried about how it would go together especially under the tail, but the rivets pulled it together beautifully

  Jan 26, 2022     Last of the bulkeheads inserted and riveting under way! - (5 hours)       Category: Empennage

Thanks to Fred again for helping do some of the riveting of the awkard curves around the very aft section of the empanage. First did the very aft bellyskin, (cut away and smooth, and rivet the last bulkhead to it, insert the whole sub assembly and clecko inplace. (rememebering to get the ribs under it.

  Jan 15, 2022     Left and right sides are on. - (5 hours)       Category: Empennage

Left and right sides are cleckoed in place. Biggest hangup was paging back and forth to place the wiring harnesses in the track first. For some reason I had trouble visualizing

  Jan 13, 2022     Dimples dimples dimples, countersink dimples.... - (9 hours)       Category: Empennage

Dimpled the 01473 L & R skins countersunk the longerons untill the compressor was too hot to touch and the drill was too cold to handle. Will finish the last couple of countersinks tomorrow. Dimpled the skins, broke a dimpledie in the C Frame. Borrowed from Mike Elstein the D2R2 dimpler (or whatever its called) nice. More even dimples, no stray holes in the skin and no bruised thumb. Really should have invested in one of those. Nice to have good neighbors.

  Jan 10, 2022     Bottom of empanage in place! Looking like something - (8 hours)       Category: Empennage

100s of dimples and rivets. Back rivited much of the bulkheads and stringers to the bottom by cleckoing and then taping the structures together so they didn't flop around. But had to put it back on teh stands invrerted to get that last 2 rows of rivets. Fred helped me drive those rivets. Did mess up one back rivet by missing the plate. (Sigh)

  Jan 08, 2022     more empanage - (5 hours)       Category: Empennage

  Jan 06, 2022     another sub assembly - (6 hours)       Category: Empennage

Empennage bulkhead with stab attach points.

  Dec 27, 2021     Great progress today - (8 hours)       Category: Empennage

Lots of progress culiminating in completion of 10-8 with the tie down riveted in place. My priming has gotten better too....

  Dec 13, 2021     Been negligent in record keeping - (20 hours)       Category: Empennage

Fabricated the various parts for the rudder stops and the primed the attach points and the rudder stops. also incorporated the AD for aft fuselage cracks...

  Oct 29, 2021     Chapter 10 now underway..... - (4 hours)       Category: Empennage

Cut and deburred all the long pieces from the first page of Chapter 10 empanage. Been going slow since once this section is done I will be out of parts for months untill the wings and fuselage arrive.

  Mar 03, 2021     Van's reply on the vertical Stab - (3 hours) Category: Empennage

Van's builder support approved 4 pop rivets in the area of the hinge where I drove the rivets backwards, thereby denying myself the room required to form a shophead. Problem solved. Vertical Stab now finished, and hung from the wall out of the way to be forgotten about till later. On to the Rudder.

  Mar 02, 2021     An Up and down day on the rudder. - (6 hours)       Category: Empennage

Well, went back to the Vertical Stab and tried to clean up 4 rivets in the area of the hinge bracket. Hoping Vans will give me permission to replace those with Pulled Rivets. (Skin to Spar on Vertical stab right around center rudder hinge bracket.

Then moved on to starting the rudder while I awaited the answer. Some of the parts had been done in 2014 back in NJ, so I got through first two pages of chapter 7 fairly quickly. Miracle of miracle I found all the parts. A little fluting a little deburring, and turned the page... Went looking for the rudder skins, and CRAP. Corrosion on the trailing edge of both skins. So I ordered new skins from Van's. (And the light box kit for Eileen to do, and about 100 extra pulled rivets, figuring that my Vertical Stab problems wouldn't be my last mistake) And now I wait for Fedex.

  Mar 01, 2021     HOORAY BACK IN BUSINESS - (6 hours)       Category: Empennage

With the Help of Fred Schriver we drove all the driven rivets in the Vertical stabilizer. Then I attached the rear spar and squeezed all those rivets with Eileen helping. The Vertical stab is complete! Back in business after not driving a rivet since November of 2014....