Page 09-04 Build Time: 96 hrs
Worked through the Horizontal Stabilizer spar box and put in an honest 9 hours today. Could have went farther but you get mentally exhausted and that's when mistakes happen. Most of the time is spent either re-reading the instructions so I don't miss a step, thinking ahead to make sure all is well and of course - deburring. Found that the control horns had the 0.06 gap in the box and a quick search on Vans Air-force showed that some had also ran into this issue. The post was from 2009 so I'm a bit concerned that this kind of problem would still be around. In any case I took the time to lay out all the parts and measure the hole spacing in the the skeleton assembly and the skins. My thoughts were that the spar cap could be short and causing the spar box assembly to come up short. That would put an offset into all of the holes and make assembly impossible. Everything measured out and I expect it all to come together as designed. I fabricated the shims for the horns from some 0.032 2024 stock and while it took the morning to work through this they came out fine. I was tempted to countersink all the way through the shims but that would be a waste of time and have little value. I'll be calling Vans tomorrow to pick up some of the parts that were missing from the kits and discuss the shims. I expect to get the same story and that's why I spent the time to create them.
All the work to the spar box is complete sans riveting which comes after primer. This was a lot of work but it came out nice.
I ordered the Main Squeeze and I'll give that a try if they send me the pins they left out of the order. I'd like to finish the HS this week if possible. Everything here on is pretty simple except the hinges where the directions say to match drill both on the right skin. I assume the math will all work out but I'll be marking and checking before poking any holes.
Tomorrow will be the ribs, stops and hinges and if I can I'll deburr the skins. If everything goes well perhaps we'll get to scuff and clean the parts for paint but I suspect that will take another day.
Worked through the Horizontal Stabilizer spar box and put in an honest 9 hours today. Could have went farther but you get mentally exhausted and that's when mistakes happen. Most of the time is spent either re-reading the instructions so I don't miss a step, thinking ahead to make sure all is well and of course - deburring. Found that the control horns had the 0.06 gap in the box and a quick search on Vans Air-force showed that some had also ran into this issue. The post was from 2009 so I'm a bit concerned that this kind of problem would still be around. In any case I took the time to lay out all the parts and measure the hole spacing in the the skeleton assembly and the skins. My thoughts were that the spar cap could be short and causing the spar box assembly to come up short. That would put an offset into all of the holes and make assembly impossible. Everything measured out and I expect it all to come together as designed. I fabricated the shims for the horns from some 0.032 2024 stock and while it took the morning to work through this they came out fine. I was tempted to countersink all the way through the shims but that would be a waste of time and have little value. I'll be calling Vans tomorrow to pick up some of the parts that were missing from the kits and discuss the shims. I expect to get the same story and that's why I spent the time to create them.
Tomorrow will be the ribs, stops and hinges and if I can I'll deburr the skins. If everything goes well perhaps we'll get to scuff and clean the parts for paint but I suspect that will take another day.
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