Vertical Stabilizer

Woo! Tools came in, and the replacement parts for the front spare of the horizontal stabilizer.  But i want to complete the vertical stabilizer while its still fresh in my mind so I worked on that instead.  I got out of work around 5:30 and hit the hanger near 6 pm Friday night.

First, I had waited to match drill the skin until I had fluted my ribs.  Now if you don't know what fluting is, fluting is when you bend the flanges of the rib to straighten the rib out.  When the ribs are made, they tend to have some bend to them, and by shortening the length of the flange, you effectively get rid of this bend.  I was waiting for the fluting pliers, and since they got here, I was able to flute the ribs.

From Drop Box

Rib after fluting with fluting pliers.

Once the ribs were fluted, I put the skeleton back together and put the skin on with clecos

From Drop Box

Look! It looks like an airplane part!

Next I did a lot of edge finishing, deburring, and dimpling.... A lot...

From Drop Box

Skin after dimpling.

I was still feeling awake and motivated so I kept going, and went ahead and primed the ribs.

From Drop Box

Primed ribs (get it..?)

And was still feeling good so I primed the spars and the spare reinforcement.

From Drop Box

Entire skeleton primed for the vertical stabilizer.

And then went ahead and figured might as well prime the inside of the skin too.  I only primed where the metal would be touching other metal, or where I had inadvertently scratched the aluminum.

From Drop Box

Primed skin (inside).

At this point I really did go to bed, but it was midnight.  All thats left before I can start putting it all together is some deburring on the skin!