1.3 Hours -
Time to tackle the remaining dimples that needed to be made on the horizontal stabilizer skins. I tried to do this with the male dimple die on the bottom of the c-frame (the normal setup), but it just wasn’t working for me without a third hand. So, I took the spring off the c-frame and switched the male to the top. Now, with the skin bending down, there was less in my way. i could line the skin up, drop the male die down into the hole (the spring was removed from the c-frame to make sure I didn’t make any extra holes in the skin), give it a whack with the hammer and, voilà, a perfect dimple.
400 dimples or so later and I was ready to prime the inside of the skins. I’m only priming the mating surfaces, but I wasn’t going to waste time masking the inside of the skins to get perfect looking lines of primer (no one is ever going to see this one the HS is riveted). I simply roughed up the surface around the holes using a Scotch-Brite pad, cleaned the surface with MEK, and sprayed the roughed up areas with primer. Quick, simple, effective!
In order to build an airplane, I’ve realized that you have to overcome your fear of straying from the instructions. You also have to overcome your fear of screwing up. The instructions are more like guidelines. They will tell you a good order to proceed in, but they don’t tell you how to do every little thing. Van’s lets you figure that out for yourself through trial and error. After all, as amateur builders, the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) tell us that we are allowed to build for the purposes of recreation and education only. Thirty-some hours into the empennage, I’ve learned quite a bit. However, I also realize that I have much more to learn.
MEK is nasty smelling stuff, but it cleans everything off very quickly. The respirator is more for the smell than anything else.
Not the cleanest lines, but no one will ever see this once it is riveted closed.
