Vans RV12 Build Log
Empennage
Everything Rearward of the Baggage Compartment/ Sub-Kit 1 of 6
Start of the Stabilator3/15/2018 We are headed to Houston tomorrow for rodeo to celebrate my brothers birthday which was actually last weekend. So it'll be a couple of days off until hopefully Sunday. Made tons of progress today so I thought an update would be best before I get too far ahead and have too much information to upload all at once. Starting off with the finishing of the Anti Servo Tabs. All I had left to do since my last update was to rivet the bottom ribs and the hinge on the bottom leading edge which went relatively uneventful. The ASTs joined the VS upstairs in the guest bedroom like a proud completed piece of artwork. On to the Stabilator, Also I just realized that I was not posting pictures of the drawings for these pieces so my apologies, will make a mental note to do that from here on. Ah yes the stabilator, it starts out with assembling the spar box assembly which is just some flat aluminum attached to square flanges. It is really easy to mess this part up as I thought I did after I had everything riveted together. Talk about give ya a heart attack! Once I delightfully realized I had everything together correctly, turns out I was just looking at the assembly backwards as I had it flipped over to do some deburring, you press on the Front and rear spars. The spars are the long 8 & 6ft pieces lying on the table, which will be the width of the stabilator once complete. There are many small parts that must be cut and deburred to act as stiffeners, caps and doublers which takes up most of the time on this section. You get to a point where you have to use a nut plate and a screw to match drill the nutplate holes onto the spar for the horns, 16 total holes. This was the biggest PITA thus far as holding a nutplate in place with no holes to secure it to creates a ton of scratches on the inside of the spar, I have this pictured below. That was the stopping point for tonight. When I return I will have to finish drilling the holes for the nutplates on the rear spar for the horns. Catch ya in a few days!
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January 2019
Empennage Total Build Hours: 82.24
Inventory: 1.45 Vertical Stabilizer: 13.26 Rudder: 7.5 Anti-Servo Tabs: 4:30 Stabilator: 24.11 Tailcone: 30.42 |