At last, I managed to get the last one of the four forward attach nuts on the HS torqued into place. It took about 30 minutes, as I anticipated. I re-attached the Adel clamp that secures the three wires that come up through the aft deck. and re-positioned the tail camera wire to get some more slack in it.

Once that was accomplished, I decided to start mounting the vertical stabilizer. When the VS was temporarily attached about a year ago, everything fit like a glove. Imagine my surprise today when I found a 1/4" gap between the forward face of the VS spar tab and the HS spar web. I know there wasn't a gap before, when the parts were clecoed together on the fuselage.

A quick check of the drawings showed that, a year ago, I'd riveted the spacer plate and attach tab on the BACK of the VS spar, instead of the front side, where they were supposed to be. And I'd never checked the fit after riveting them. I'd simply taken the VS home and stored it. D'oh.

I drilled out the eleven rivets, and prepped and primed all the parts again. Tomorrow I'll rivet everything in its proper place. Yeesh.

(Photo 3: Do NOT do what I did here.)