10/21/2004 Received the empennage kit. Prior to this day, I have already received my RV tool kit, cleaned up my garage and built two work benches for the project. I first clecoed the horizontal stabilizer together. All the matching holes (pre-punched) were drilled to size, either #40 or #30. Then the assembly was disassembled (by removing clecos) and all edges cleaned and rounded. If necessary, holes were dimpled or countersunk, and ribs were flutted. Finally, the blue protective films were removed and surfaces cleaned and sprayed with primer. Only after that, rivets were squeezed or hammered in (use rivet gun).
The same process was repeated for the vertical stabilizer, rudder, elevators, and elevator trim tab.
Squeez rivets by myself
During the Thanksgiving week, my son David came home from his first year medical school. I immediately drafted him to help buckling rivets (holding the buckling bar while I used the rivet gun to hammer the rivet). Being a private pilot himself, he was eager to see the project making progress.
Horizontal and vertical stabilizers were completed right after Thanksgiving
My younger son, Joey also helped from time to time.
Finally, after 241 hours the empennage was completed. Of course, there were still fiberglass tips that has to be done after the airframe is completed. The tail strobe light will have to be installed as well. There are always something that needs to be taking care of later. This picture was taken on the Christmas day, 2004. We did feel the accomplishment holding the tail of a real airplane.