Lots of things happened in the last three days. Once the skeleton was done, I prepped the right HS skin, sanding out interior scratches, trimming off blue plastic, and smoothing edges. I started dimpling with the pneumatic squeezer, and then Ellen and I continued with the DRDT-2.

Ok, here’s a quick quiz…what step didn’t I list above? That’s right, I forgot to debur the right HS skin rivet holes until we were about halfway through dimpling. Before doing any more, I called Van’s to see how bad I screwed up. Well, I lucked out – because the cure was simply to sandpaper the male side of the dimples to remove burrs. After reading some newsgroup posts on this problem I considered the possibility of structural problems – cracks, etc. – from dimpling with burrs, but Van’s wasn’t concerned. That’s good enough for me…but this is one mistake I’ll work hard to avoid in the future.

…and I didn’t make the same mistake on the left skin. It’s finished and the HS is done until the Super Koropon primer arrives, which I hope will be in the next week. Can somebody explain to me why it takes PRC-DeSoto a month to ship one 2-gallon kit of epoxy primer?

DVD of the day – ‘The Great Waldo Pepper’. A great, yet underappreciated movie – and in my opinion, some of the best flying scenes ever filmed.

I’ve gone awhile without an update – too much work stuff getting in the way of building! In the last week I finished match-drilling the left horizontal stab, then assembled the right horizontal stab frame and clecoed it to the skin. After prep work on the inboard ribs, I match-drilled them to the front and rear spar, again using a 12″ #30 bit. It worked even better this time than before.

Edge distances are muy bueno – I’m relieved. A screw-up here would mean redoing a lot of work.

After finishing up the right HS match-drilling, I disassembled everything. Had several kinds of fun finishing edges with the scotchbrite wheel, then deburring holes. Following that, dimpled the frame with the pneumatic squeezer – once again, the squeezer is one tool that’s worth the expense. The skins still require edge finishing, deburring and dimpling.

DVD of the day – ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Volume 3’. The ‘Lumberjack Song’ really makes tedious work go faster.

I finally had some time today for more work. Got the rest of the HS-405 and -702 match-drilled, and clecoed the HS-710 and -714 in preparation for drilling all these parts, plus the HS-404 nose ribs, in assembly. I don’t have an angle drill, and was in a quandry about how best to drill these parts. Even though I measured everything precisely, I was also concerned about having the proper edge distance on all these parts when drilled together. Thanks to some advice from Jim Smith, I managed to get the job done with a 12-inch #30 bit – thanks, Jim!

Drilling is done – and the edge distances look ok. Closest margin is the HS-710 to -405 hole, where the edge distance is just slightly over 1/4″ from the hole center to the edge. The technique I used to lay out the center HS-404 and -405 holes seems to have worked well.

The goal for tomorrow is to finish match-drilling the entire HS left side, then fit the right HS frame to its skin.

Not much progress recently, a rather tough weekend around the house. Before I finished up the HS left side, I wanted to make sure that the HS-702 tab seen here – left with a smaller edge radius where the excess flange radius was removed – wasn’t too sharp. I emailed Van’s with some pictures, and they gave me the thumbs-up.

One tricky area I encountered was how to drill the HS-405 front flange, and trim the HS-404 aft flange, so that when the two are drilled together all holes have the proper edge distance. Based on newsgroup emails, this area has been a problem for others as well. So, I cut two strips of scrap 0.032″ aluminum and clamped them to the -404 and -405, as a sort of simulated HS skin. I marked the HS-404 flange edges on the -405 and used those marks, plus a little margin for error, to lay out the two center #40 holes called for in the plans. If you use this approach, be sure to pull the -404’s flange tight against the -405 after they are clamped together.

Finally, some visible progress! I match-drilled the left HS frame, then deburred the resulting holes. Those 12-inch #30 drill bits I bought eleven years ago finally got some use. The frame was reassembled and with Ellen’s help, the skin was fitted to it. I found that this process is much easier if you can get one or two clecoes in the nose ribs, since that’s where the fit is worst initially.

I’m so happy to have something that resembles an airplane part that I’m throwing in another picture. Note that I’ve slipped in the HS-405 just for grins. I haven’t drilled its forward flange holes yet, and won’t until the new HS-404s arrive, are trimmed, and are test-fitted to the -405s to verify proper edge distance on the web holes.

The only slight hiccup in this process was getting the HS-707 nose rib (the one at mid-span) holes to align with the skin. This rib fits into the leading edge at an angle, and the rib flanges won’t fit easily into the skin. If you’re not there yet, take your time and try to get the flanges as aligned with the skin as possible as you insert the frame into the skin.

Pictures are courtesy of Tracy Murphy, generous co-worker and friend, who lent me his spare digital camera while the Post Office finds mine. Movie of the day was “Goldmember” – yeah, baby!

Progress has been really slow recently. I’ve had only a little time for building. After deciding to get over the minor (less than 1/32″) offset in the rear spar channels, I match-drilled and cleco the rear spar.

Following that, I clecoed and match-drilled the HS-412 and HS-413 brackets. As you can see from the dental floss I strung through the hinge line, the prepunched parts lined up pretty well.

Then I clamped the HS-411 bearing brackets around the VA-146 bearing, clecoed the whole assembly to the spar, and match-drilled the bearing rivet holes. A #40 punch helped align and center the -146 holes with the predrilled HS-411.