Horizontal Stabilizer « Matt's RV-7 Project

Archive for the ‘Horizontal Stabilizer’ Category

Dimples

Saturday, June 4th, 2005

Matthew Brandes came over tonight to check out the RV-7 factory. He pointed out that the dimples I'd done with the DRDT weren't deep enough. Dang. I had originally been lazy and not bolted the DRDT to the bench, so I wasn't able to yank on the handle with sufficient force to set the dimples properly. So, I had to laboriously re-dimple the three skins I'd done so far (2 HS and 1 VS) after setting up the DRDT so it can be quickly attached to the bench and then removed, which is so boring that I won't bother to post a photo of it.

Oh what the heck, here's a photo anyway:

Posted in Empennage, Horizontal Stabilizer, Vertical Stabilizer |

Riveted HS front spar

Friday, June 3rd, 2005

Here's the front spar after being riveted together:

Here are the HS-405 ribs riveted to the front spar. I couldn't get all the rivets with the squeezer so I had to shoot/buck some. They turned out pretty good.

And now, here's the HS-404 ribs riveted in place as well – these rivets went in with the gun too:

The left side has an extra rivet, as seen here. I hope I don't have to use aileron trim to counteract the weight imbalance. (joke)

Posted in Empennage, Horizontal Stabilizer |

Riveted HS rear spar

Thursday, June 2nd, 2005

Tonight I got the rear horizontal stabilizer spar riveted together. It went pretty well – the pneumatic squeezer is definitely a must-have for this stuff.

Pretty rows of manufactured heads on the exterior side…

…and nice, consistent shop heads on the interior side:

The elevator hinge brakcets get attached, and this sucker is done. The rivet length callouts for middle and outboard hinges seemed a little weird, but I followed the plans anyway. The center hinge bracket gets bolted in place, which means that I got to use the fancy new torque wrench that I sprung for. Any day where you get to use a new tool is a good one.

Posted in Empennage, Horizontal Stabilizer |

Son of Spar

Wednesday, June 1st, 2005

New left-side horizontal stabilizer spar: drilled, deburred, dimpled, primed, done. Whew. Also touched up the primer on HS-710 and HS-714 while I had on the Darth Vader rig.

Posted in Empennage, Horizontal Stabilizer |

I'll tell you why

Monday, May 23rd, 2005

In Saturday's post I idly wondered why Van's was having me drill the hole in the front spar for the trim motor wiring so close to a preexisting tooling hole. We'll I'll tell you why it looked weird: because I had accidentally grabbed the rear spar and happily drilled a giant hole through it instead, thus ruining it. Arrgh. That's what I get for not triple-checking the plans and the part numbers. Of course it doesn't help that the instructions don't even mention this particular hole – I guess they're hoping that you'll notice the tiny callout on the plans, but whatever. At least the replacement HS-603PP is only eighteen bucks. I'm going to be out of town for a week anyway, so it's not that much of a setback other than the couple hours it will take me to drill, deburr, dimple, and prime a new spar. Bah.

Posted in Empennage, Horizontal Stabilizer |