Back in October we went to a birthday party for my Grandfather.  We were all sitting around the table after an excellent meal enjoying conversation.  Several of the attendees got up to go out and see some of my dad's horses, while Erica and I stayed in to visit with my grandparents.  We got started talking about when they first got married.  As we were having the conversation I realized that I had my camcorder and was missing a great opportunity to catch some of that oral history of our family.  I pulled my camera out and was able to capture the rest of the conversation.

The conversation started with a discussion of how my grandparents were married just days before my grandfather shipped out for military service during WW2.  Grandpa went to war late, and arrived in Europe just as hostilities were ending.  When they had come back they were staying in a relatives home, and needed to move out quickly as the relatives were moving as well.

We pick up with my Grandmother discussing their first home.

Here is our Flickr Photo Album

This will be a long post as I haven't done an update in a long time.  When I left off I was working on the Horizontal stabilizer spars.  I built the cradles for the skins, and realized that I made them way too tall.

once I got the front spar parts all match drilled, I primed them and started the process of riveting the doubler, spar caps, and attach brackets in place.  I botched up one of the rivets on the attach bracket.  I will have to fix that later.

With both spars riveted, I started the assembly of the whole stabilizer.  Like on the vertical stabilizer, the nose ribs are difficult to get in place, but I think these will go a lot better.  I really didn't have all the clecos I needed to get the skins in place and as tight as I would like it.  

In order toget good alignment to do the final drilling, I wound up moving a LOT of the clecos around, and getting a sore hand in the process.  My pore little compressor can barely keep up during the drilling process, so moving clecos around didn't really cost me a lot of time.  I have since acquired 200 more 3/32" clecos.

After the process of drilling the skins, I disassembled the stabilizer and started the long process of deburring all of the parts, then countersinking and dimpling the skins.  This is an incredibly long, and tedious process.  I worked on it a little every night.  I had to get some help dimpling the skins as they were really too long to support one end, while the other end was in the C-Frame.

I have all but given up on using the Sherwin-Williams primer.  I have not had any luck shooting that primer, but the self etching rattle can primer goes on and covers very well.  I primed all of the parts, and the skins where they mate with the skeleton.

Here you can see the center section of the stab cleco'd together before I start riveting.

Completed center section.

Next all but the two most outboard inspar ribs were assembled to the front spar, and riveted in place. 

Before calling it a night, I set the cradles back up and clecod the nose ribs in place.  Next I will rivet these to the skin, then start assembling the complete assembly.

I am still here, and still building.

I am making steady progress on the Horizontal Stab.  Work has kept me out of town, and the leaves keep piling up.

I have the Horizontal Stab parts primed, and one of the skins dimpled.  One more skin to dimple, then I can start final assembly.

Progress has been pretty slow on the airplane.  I am sticking to the "do something every day" mentality.  Currently, I have primer drying on the components of the HS forward spar.  I can begin assembling and riveting those parts as a next step.

While we were on vacation I had a piece of angle shipped to re-do the front attach brackets on the Horizontal spar.  They turned out very well this time, using the correct hole sizes.

I have 4 pieces of 3/4" MDF Cut out and ready to start building the cradles for assembly of the Horizontal Spar.  I am headed to Las Vegas tomorrow for an Industry conference, returning late Thursday, then turning around and heading to South Carolina the next week for a project.

Erica and I finally got around to taking our first big vacation since we got married 3 1/2 years ago.  On Sep 17-25th we toured Costa Rican Rain Forest, Volcanoes and Beaches.  It was a great trip.  I will post some articles from the trip as I get time.

I haven't been very good at updating here.  Work has been very busy, and my wife has had a bout with Kidney Stones.  I have managed to get some time in here and there.

My Father in Law came over to help me with the rudder assembly.  I had prepped by using Tim Olson's procedure using Steel angle iron as a back plate.  I drilled the angle and used it to hold the trailing edge straight while we glued the trailing edge together.  This is a pretty busy session as you need to proseal half of the trailing edge, then assemble the stiffeners to the shear clips.  It takes lots of hands and having some help is a plus.

With all that done the rudder spar goes on the assembly and gets riveted in place.  Most of the rivets can be squeezed, but there are a couple that need to be bucked, and it is pretty tight to get your hand to them.

I am holding out on finishing the attachment of the counterweight until I get a torque wrench to properly seat them.

While I was working on wrapping up the rudder, I got to work prepping parts for the Horizontal Stabilizer.  I got both spars and spent a lot of time getting them all deburred.  These spars are about 11 feet long, so I built a couple table tops to put on sawhorses (1 2'x8', 2 2'x4') so that I can have options to reconfigure the work table.

The rear spar is pretty straightforward, there are some hinge brackets and doubler that get riveted in place.  I got everything drilled, and primed and my dad came over to work with me.  This was his first time to work with me on the plane, and we had a good time.  We got all the rear spar riveted together including the inner bearing/bracket.  We got a start on the attach brackets, but then called it a night.

The next step was to complete the fabrication of the attach brackets.  These are cut out of a large piece of aluminum angle.  Not having a belt sander, I rough cut the pieces then used a vixen file to bring them to final dimensions.  The second bracket I made turned out a lot better than the second.

Next there were six pieces of aluminum angle for stringers and caps that needed to be cut to a taper and deburred.  I bypassed the bandsaw and used the aviation snips, getting a forearm workout on the thick metal in the process.

The HS-1013 spar cap gets marked and clamped into place, drilled to the web, deburred, re-attached, drilled to the flange. etc.  This takes quite a while with all of the hole deburring, drilling and waiting on my wimpy little compressor.

I completed the drilling of the spar caps, and temporarily fastened the spar doubler.  This was when I started to realize that I had made a mistake earlier in the day.  After the doubler is attached the attach brackets I finished earlier in the day are fitted to the doubler and spar assembly.  Looking closer, I had mistakenly swapped the size of the holes on the attach brackets.  The means that the 1 hole needed to locate the bracket to the doubler was over sized, and I get to make a new pair of brackets.

I will order the part from Van's on Monday, and work on it when I get back from Vacation in a couple of weeks.

I got on a mission to complete the vertical stabilizer last night since it was so close.  I made a lot of noise at first finishing up what riveting had to be done with the rivet gun.  All of the riveting to the rear spar could be done with the squeezer except for a handful that were too close to hinge brackets.

This part is done!

I got the skins re-attached last night, so that I was ready for riveting the middle ribs to the skin.  My father-in-law came over and we got right to work.  For the middle ribs it helps to have one person reaching in with the bucking bar, while the other uses the rivet gun. 

The riveting process goes like this

1. Rivet the skin to the middle nose rib.  Start at front spar riveting both sides, and work forward
2. Rivet the skin to the top rib forward of the front spar
3. Rivet the bottom nose rib in place
4. Rivet the skin to the forward spar.
   1. For the area above the middle rib, uncleco just enough so you can get your hand and a bucking bar in
   2. For the area below the middle rim, remove the bottom inspar rib
5. Rivet the skin to the middle inspar rib
6. Place the bottom inspar rib back in place and rivet it to the rear spar, and it and the nose rib to the forward spar
7. Rivet the skin to the bottom inspar rib, skipping the fairing attach holes marked previously
8. Rivet the skin to the rear spar
9. Finish riveting the Spar caps to the rear spar below the skins

Working with my father in law, we got most of the way throuh step 4.  This worked out great because there were some difficult spots where it was good to have a second pair of hands and eyes.