Category Archives: Empennage

Time: 1 Hour
This Easter weekend I didn’t get a whole lot done in the hangar. My goal was to prep all my work for the future priming. All the HS substructure got cleaned and is now ready.

Time: 4 Hours
Got a little work done in the Hangar today. Worked on deburring all the holes on both the left and right side HS skins. Then I treated the areas that will be dimpled with the Scotch-Brite pad. Next up was to use the DRDT-2 machine to dimple every hole in the shins, top and bottom. Tomorrow I will do some final Scotch-Brite work on all the pieces and maybe get some priming done.

Time: 3 Hours
Today I was able to get all the substructure of the HS dimpled. That’s the process of creating a dent around the hole so that a flat rivet will sit flush. The skins will have a dimple as well. The dimple creates a pimple of sorts on the underside of the metal. That pimple needs a place to sit in so that the two pieces sit flush with each other. So the substructure, like the flanges on the ribs, need a dimple to accept the pimple of the skin that will be mated to it. To do this process you use a set of dies, one female and one male, that shape the metal into the dimple.

For all the ribs and spars I used my pneumatic squeezer with the correct set of dies. This tool makes quick work of this job.

For really tights spots, like the nose of some ribs, I used a set of dies that uses a nail and the pull rivet tool.

Next up was the job of removing the blue protective plastic from the areas of the skins that have the holes so that I can dimple and eventually rivet them.

Next up will be deburring every hole, top, bottom, inside and out, on both skins. Once that is accomplished I will dimple the skins with my DRDT-2 machine. I set up the DRDT-2 and the table I made for it and clamped it to my workbench. It will be all ready for me tomorrow after all the deburring is done.

Time: 5 Hours
Yesterday I got in around 5 hours in the Hangar. First up was to tackle the dreaded HS-405, HS-702 & HS-404 junction drilling. I spoke about this earlier and how many builders end up with edge distance problems. Usually this distance is ok according to Van’s Aircraft tech support. I had to wait until my 12″ #30 and #40 drill bits got in at Grainger. Then I measured and marked the aft flange of HS-404 and drilled away. Those went very well drilling from forward to aft.

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I then used the same bits to drill from aft to forward on the two outer holes. These also included the HS-810, HS-814 stiffeners in the drill group. All in all I was happy with this task, thankfully I learned a lot from other builders mistakes.

Then I was off and running repeating everything I had just finished on the right half of the HS. <

Time: 4 Hours
I was able to build up the substructure for the left half of the HS. This included match drilling all the connections.

Next up was wrapping that structure with the skin. This includes a lot of Cleko’s. I’m sure glad I invested in a pneumatic Cleko gun. That tool saves a lot of time vs the hand pliers.

Next up was to insert the middle rib, HS-405 and the forward rib, HS-404. These are then marked so that you can drill them using the skin as a guide. This went fast and wasn’t too hard. However I may have an issue with edge distance on the forward upper and lower flange on HS-405. I will consult with the pros tomorrow and see what they think.

You can see the area I’m concerned about in this photo. It is the edge distance on the bottom and left to right (aft to forward).

Overall I’m happy with my progress today! Here is the results: