Picked back up on page 9-2, namely on drilling out the E-904/903/913 cleco'd up assembly. As I was finishing the first one's #30 and #12 holes, I saw a stress crack along the E-904 part, at the front (non-pointy) end where I had fluted the material. Long story short, I sent a note to Van's builder support to see if this gets a ‘drill it out and build on' or a ‘better order your first replacement parts' verdict. If I'm placing bets here, I'm guessing it's a ‘order the part', but we'll see.
This was from the part that I received with my empennage order that was somewhat suspiciously already out of it's blue vinyl, had been dimpled already and everything - so it had the look of a training part at the factory (or elsewhere), but my inspection showed the part to be good so I accepted it.
Aside from that, I found the E-1002 Shear Clips in near record time along my wall of parts, and cut those out and deburred the edges and final drilled the shorter flange side of the clips. Man, the scotchbrite wheels are a dream for edge deburring.
After that, I hunted the Elevator Skins, which took more like 10 minutes, as I had the top skins in one place and the bottom skins in another (makes total sense, right?). I'm sure it had nothing to do with the sorting of parts that occurred when I received the wing kit and my bad sorting habits from the empennage original unboxing.
I then started to muster the courage for bending the close-out tab on the elevator, didn't quite get to the step tonight - but I'm feeling more confident about it now at least. I may still take a piece of scrap and practice this one first…. (Since there is a step where you're using the flush rivet set on low power to properly bend the close out tab).
Update: Just chatted with Kevin from Van's Builder Support - Verdict here: Build On! Kevin offered an optional step here as well, which is to apply a small amount of Proseal around the affected area (essentially the back of the 903/904 assemblies where they mate up against the 913). Since I'm priming, I'll want to leave that area unprimed (so note to future-self, mask the bonding area so I can get the ProSeal to play nicely). Double-bonus: This will/could end up being a solid 'ProSeal practice' before things get crazy with fuel tanks.