Stabilator Prep Part 9

 4/21/23 & 4/22/23 Etch and Priming and skeleton assembly.  7.5 man hours.

Spent couple sessions etching and priming parts.

Riveting the skeleton together.

Right skin cleco'ed on/

Half riveted...

All done.

This is the 1000th pulled rivet!

On the next box.

Flip side of the right side.

Half done.

All done!

Stabilator Prep Part 8

Deburring ribs and skins. 2.5 man hours.

Deburring all these ribs ranks right up there with colonoscopy prep.

Deburred the extension skins and removed the blue stuff.

Removed the blue stuff from the main skins.  Before...

After....

Stabilator Prep Part 7

 Deburring parts and fluting ribs. - 2 man hours.

Cutting the rib attach angles from the stick. 

Deburring the rib attach angles.

Deburring the hinge reinforcement plates.  I think these were added as a SB some time back.

Fluting the ribs.

Putting a radius on the nose of the front ribs.  Before.....

After....

Deburring the skin splice plate.

Cutting the outboard extension skins apart.

Removing the nib left over.

Stabilator Prep Part 6

 Assembled the Stabilator Spar Assembly - 1.5 man hours

For some reason these pics are coming out all weird with what looks like splotches all over my parts.  That is the lighting or something strange as it is not that noticeable in person.

Next step is to rivet the hinge assemblies to the fwd spar.

Pay attention to the orientation and ensure the ones with the nutplates are installed outboard.

All done.  You will need the wedge tools to rivet these.

Shop heads.

They want you to temporarily install the hinge stop hardware in the hinge bracket assemblies for some reason.  I did not tighten them down at this point because I don't like reusing locknuts multiple times.

Finger tight for now.

Used the squeezer and the longeron yoke to rivet all the counterbalance arm brackets to the spars.  Ensure you align them properly or it will be impossible to get those bolts in while assembling down the road.

Fwd one done.

Fwd one's shop tails.

Aft one done.

Aft one's shop tails.

Next cleco the horn spacers back in their proper place and orientation.

Rivet the holes called out in the plans only.

Top side done.

Bottom side done.

Next comes clecoing the inboard horn attach angle and control horns.

Riveted the attach angle.

Riveted the angles to the horns.

Not much clearance between the squeezer and the spar web during this operation.

All done.

Next comes the 5/32" blind rivets.  These are some heavy duty suckers!

Front done.

Top done.

Bottom done.

Assembly done.

This was definitely the most complex assembly so far for the project.  Takes some head scratching and triple checking that everything is where it belongs and oriented properly.