Finished up the Horizontal Stabilizer tip fairing seams. Turned out pretty good. The more I do this process, the better I get at it. I probably couldn’t fab an entire speedboat out of glass, but…

Time to store the HS away.

Wow, the whole process turned out really good on the elevator seams. I felt it was going to be fine, but I’m even more satisfied now that there’s primer on it and it looks great. After the first coat of primer I lightly sanded with 220 sandpaper then put another coat of primer on.

I’ll now move on to the left side elevator now that I know the process works. It really does look like one continuous piece. Well, other than the fact that some of the rivets are covered by the process. All in all, glad I did this. I’d recommend it if you have time while waiting for another kit section or when you are in the finishing process.

The right side fairings on the horizontal stabilizer are filled, glassed, filled, and ready for a shot of primer to see how they came out. Looks like they’ll turn out pretty good. I’ll move on to the left side after these are primed. Wanted to try everything out on one side first.

You learn quick when doing this that you were probably a little too worried about simple marks and such on the exterior skins. Not really that much to worry about. After paint most everything you were concerned about will probably be fine.

More sanding work on the fairing seams. On the right is a pic of the elevator after sanding the first coat of filler. West Systems 410 fills nice and sand like a charm. Glad I’m using it.

The pic to the left shows the horizontal fairing gap finished off and sanded. The gap between the elevator and the HS fairing is about 1/8 inch as the plans calls for. It took a little bit of time to sand and shape this gap, but I think it will look nice after paint.

This shows the elevator and HS seams after the first coat of filler has been sanded. Man, the shop is a mess! Dust all over the place. No use cleaning up now until all this fairing work is done. Mask and eye protection are the tools of the week lately.

Here’s a closeup of the hs fairing after a layer of 2 ounce glass was epoxied on, followed by a top coat of 410 filler. Sorry, no pictures of the glass going on. To much epoxy dripping around. You can see the process I followed HERE. Great little tutorial on doing glass work. Sanded down to “smooth” with 220 grit sandpaper. This part is ready for a coat of primer to see how it looks. I think it will be just fine.

This is the elevator fairing after sanding down the layer of glass. It’s pretty smooth as it is, but I will put a final thin layer of 410 over this and it will be finished. All in all this process has taken a little time, but I think it will look great and I have to wait for the wings to get here anyways, so why not?

Trimmed the horizontal stabilizer fairing to match the elevator fairing angles. Left enough gap to fill and sand.

After that I put in a foam rib as called for in the plans. Used some 5-minute epoxy to glue it in there. However, I will not be removing it as the plans call for. I will be filling on top of the foam rib with some West Systems 410 micro light filler and sanding to make the edges nice and rounded and form fit to the elevator fairing.

Placed the first layer of filler over the elevator seam. This is once again the 410 filler. After this cures it will be sanded. Then I’ll epoxy a 2 ounce strip of glass over it to prevent the seam from cracking later on in life. Then I will fill over top again with 410, sand it, and prime. We’ll see how it turns out before I do the left side. :)

Tore down the whole tail today. Decided not to put on the elevators again or the rudder. Would just be taking it apart afterwards anyways. So I decided to start on the fairings.

Worked on the elevator tips. After getting them on, they don’t look too bad at the seam. There are some manufacturing defects in the tips that caused some dips along the seam. I think I will be doing as Dan Checkoway and filling and glassing the seam to make it look like a continuous surface.

Time to order the wing kit. Too bad there was just an 8% price increase on a couple days ago. :(

Over the New Year’s holiday I managed to wrap up the horizontal stabilizer. Lots of rivets in there. But small compared to the wings I imagine. There’s about 1000 or so rivets in the skins alone. I am noticing that I am improving a great deal in my rivet shooting technique. Somewhere along the line you realize that they turn out better if you let the gun and the bucking bar do the work. I fight my urge to try and “push” hard on both sides.

I did the skins one side at a time. It varied the bucking task a bit so things were a little more interesting. It took about 3 hours a side to complete the skins. Longer than I expected, but then again I took my time. I think I had to drill one out and have my first “smilie” in one spot. All in all, I think they turned out ok though.

There are a few rivets for the inbound ribs that are a little tough to shoot with the 2X gun. This is one of the spots where a 3X would have done the job better. Just a lot of pressure and hit them for a long time before they finally set. After this step I went over the inboard section with a light coat of primer to cover everything up.

Here’s a reference picture so you can see the size of the horizontal. It’s about 11 feet 2 inches long. It’s now time to move on to the elevators and trim tabs. After that it’s the tail cone. I want to try and get my slow build wing kit ordered in May so that I can have the brother come out and help with them this summer.

Happy New Year.

Total Hours on Horizontal Stabilizer: 39 Total Hours To Date: 78.5

In the past couple of nights I have match drilled, tore everything down, deburred, dimpled, countersunk and primed all the necessary parts. Man, deburring, dimpling, and countersinking all the holes takes a while. Of course it’s probably nothing compared to what the slow-build wings will be like.

I managed to ding up one of the skins also. The skin slipped just as I was on the down swing with the dead blow hammer dimpling the skins in the c-frame. I now have an extra hole right next to one of the “supposed to be there” holes. It’s on the under side, so I’m just going to have the paint guys fix it when it comes time to paint or I’m just going to put a pop rivet in it. I’m not going to sweat it and order a new skin and have to repeat the process when it’s on the under side. If it was on the top side I might just re-order, but not for this which will never be seen.

This one page on the plans took about 12 man hours to complete. Whew! The forearms, back and legs were getting a little tired at times. Where was the brother and dad during this step, huh? They left just before the REAL work began. Nice timing. I’ll make sure and save these steps when the wings arrive.

I also ordered 100 more silver clecos and a second cleco pliers so when the brother comes out next summer to help on the wings I’ll be prepared with enough tools for 4 hands instead of two.

Over the Christmas holiday the family was visiting for a few days. They were able to see most of what goes on in my garage lately. My Dad and brother helped me make some real good progress on the horizontal stabilizer. Some things go a lot faster with an extra set of hands. And some things go even faster when one person is working on a section while two others are working on a different section. For example, my brother and I worked on the rear spar assembly while my Dad fabricated the attachment brackets. This saved quite a bit of time.

We were able to get the nose ribs, front spar, and inboard ribs clecoed to the skins in the cradles. Dad made the cradles while we were riveting the rear spar doubler and attachment brackets. Another time saver. Oh, and Dad did most of the deburring on the ribs early in the morning while the rest of us were still sleeping. Another job that I was grateful for and it saved yet more time.

I can tell I’m going to need more silver clecos before I get to the tail cone. I also need to get a second cleco pliers. It would have really helped when two people are match drilling.

Merry Christmas everyone and thanks for the help.