Thursday, March 2, 2017

Empennage, Vertical Stabilizer (Part 11)

I had to make a few minor corrections to previous work on the Vertical Stabilizer.  In the picture below you can see six pieces of orange tape around the bottom of the assembly (there are also six pieces of tape on the opposite side of the assembly in corresponding locations).  The tape covers hole locations in the Skin that DO NOT get dimpled or riveted during this portion of the build.  Per the instructions, I did nothing to these 12 holes (six on either side).  
 
Over the past few days, I started to wonder about the 12 corresponding holes in the Ribs (five in each side of the Root Rib and one in each side of the Nose Rib).  In Part 6, I dimpled these holes with Substructure Dimple Die when I completed the dimpling of all the other pieces.  Since I am about to permanently rivet the Skin onto the Vertical Stabilizer skeleton, I wanted to verify how these holes should be.

I emailed Van's Aircraft at support@vansaircraft.com to inquire.  Sterling responded very quickly and informed me that I shouldn't have dimpled the 12 holes in the Ribs.  However, it wasn't a big deal.  He suggested I flatten the dimples out the best I could with flush sets in my squeezer and build on.  He also stated these holes would be drilled out to larger sized holes later in the build and it would eliminate 90% of the dimple anyway. 

 (*****I found in Section 12 what Sterling was talking about.  Those 12 holes will be drilled out to #27 in order to attach the empennage fairing*****)  So, I flattened out the 12 dimples as Sterling suggested and will rivet the Skin to the Vertical Stabilizer skeleton tomorrow.