As predicted, this section appears to be more complicated. But so far, it is more fun. There are a bunch of individual steps to complete the elevator, and I will have to grind through all of them. This section didn’t waste any time diving into deburring. In this case it was the elevator ribs. First […]

I think these last few sections of the HS illustrated to me the amount of work this airplane will take to complete. While being only a few pages in the plans, there were a lot of individual steps to complete in order for me to come out of the garage with a completed horizontal stabilizer. […]

Looking forward through the Instructions, it is quite evident that every section to come gets progressively more complicated. I will look back at the previous sections and think those are a cakewalk compared to what is to come. Pulling the parts off the shelf for the Horizontal Stabilizer, it was immediately apparent that my “EAA […]

When building an airplane, everybody knows about and comments on the riveting. Well, riveting gets all the glory but match drilling, deburring, and dimpling is the grunt work that nobody thinks about. These 3 tasks will definitely take up the majority of the build time. With 3 days of a long weekend over Memorial Day […]

From looking at the plans for the rudder, the level of complexity appears to be increasing exponentially. This is mainly due to the assembly of the trailing edge of the rudder. This section of the rudder will require a “double flush rivet” technique of which I don’t think I fully understand at this point. Luckily […]

I spent most of the afternoon finishing up the Vertical Stabilizer. This task consisted of riveting the skin to the spars and ribs as well as attaching the rear spar to the back of the VS. I thought most of the day went well. I drilled out about a half dozen rivets but nothing went […]

Over the course of these two sections, I made the other two mistakes but the 2nd mistake allowed me to erase the one previously described because I ended up replacing parts including the VS-702 and doubler. I “dimpled aft” the correct way this time with the new parts. This is a little out of order […]

I started a few days ago but today, Saturday, April 27, 2019, I made substantial progress. However, some words from the instructor of the EAA Sheetmetal Course, Jack Dueck, that I took about a month ago, rings true: “When you start making your airplane, you want to make the perfect airplane. Well, that lasts about […]

While messing around with the practice kit, the distinctive sound of an ABF Freight truck came rumbling down the road. Sure enough, the kit arrived! After man handling the crate off the truck (too long for the lift gate), I got the crate on to some Harbor Freight furniture dollys and rolled it into the […]