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.

Georgia, our on-site QC inspector, has noted several errors in Van’s plans. Unfortunately, she can’t tell us where they are.

Georgia, our on-site QC inspector, has noted several errors in Van’s plans. Unfortunately, she can’t tell us where they are. I’ve been playing with the ExperimentalAero DRDT-2…I think it’s gonna be a worthwhile investment. As I learn more about it, I’ll post information here.

The flange strips are finished, and I started fitting them in the spar channels. Progress is slow, too many things going on in the evenings and on the weekends. I played with the spar channel alignment while clecoing, because the the channels seem to be offset by about 1/32″. Is this significant? I don’t know. If you’re reading this and have some insight into how well the prepunched parts line up, I’d appreciate some feedback.

And so it begins…after two months of intermittent shop work, floor painting, bench building and part counting, I finally generated some metal shavings! Got the HS spar flange strips filed so that they fit snugly against the spar channels’ curved corners.

There were some rather deep milling/clamping marks and scratches in the flange strips when they arrived with the kit. Of course, the plans say that you should remove all scratches, no matter how small. Just to understand what the real tolerances are, I called Van’s. Their words – if you can drag a fingernail across the scratch and your nail doesn’t get stuck in it, it’s ok.