One of the more frustrating days. I started to attach the stabilator to the fuselage. Two bolts. Simple, right? I've done it before and it wasn't bad. But, then again, I haven't done it since the SL-00068 "fix" for a problem that wasn't really a problem: the washers between the hinge brackets. They've been replaced by riveted metal spacers. I attached the counterbalance arm and inserted it into the fuselage, turned it 90 degrees and bolted it to the stabilator. All good so far. But I could not get the holes to line up with the bearings on the fuselage tail. Eventually I gave it a good shove and it lined up enough to stick a punch in place as a drift pin while I tightened one bolt. But the bolt on the other side wouldn't engage the nutplate. After several hours, I pulled everything off and disassembled everything then loaded up bolts with Boelube lubricant and ran them into the nutplates to get them to engage. Repeated a few times.

I'll take another run at it at some other time.

Meanwhile a shipment of fiberglass and peel ply (and some mixing cups) arrived from Aircraft Spruce.-