Simply Riveting!

Congratulations are in order, we are now the proud owners of a vertical stabilizer.

Mark devoted his Sunday to construction of the vertical stabilizer.  He began with clecoing and the subsequent riveting of the ribs onto the spar. He even let me pull my first rivet.  I'm sorry to say that I wasn't completely ready for the "kick" and left a little mark to commemorate my first attempt.

My first rivet (if you look closely you'll see the mark I left on the primer):

Mark's father came over and spent the day helping with clecoing the skin on the VS for the first time.  Being a bit of a freak I counted the rivets that hold the skin onto the structure of the VS. . .252.  So that means that Mark and his his dad had to cleco all 252 to see where the ribs needed to be "radiused" more.  The clecos then needed to be removed, ribs radiused (Dad suggested using snips to take some of the material off and then filing), and then re-clecoing before the riviting could begin.  Having a father that is an A&P certainly is a bonus!  We however are thinking that maybe having a pneumatic cleco tool is a good idea.  I helped a bit, although it was limited because we only have two cleco pliers. . .darn the luck!

Conveniently, it was just about dinner time when the second round of clecoing was finished which gave Mark and Dad a good place to stop.  Dad went home and Mark enjoyed a bit of a rest, but couldn't really feel finished until he riveted the skin onto the VS.  Having taken a much needed break, he headed back out to the garage after dinner and riveted all 252 rivets.  Being the careful metal worker that he is, he removed each individual cleco, deburred the hole, cleaned the hole when the rivet didn't fit well, and then pulled the pneumatic rivets. 

We finally have something that looks planeish!!!  On to the rudder. . .