We continued installing rivet after rivet into the Horizontal Stabilizer. It is amazing how many damn rivets are in the Horizontal. Only counting the rivets associated with the Skins, there are a total of 740 rivets (370 rivets per Skin). Again, this count does not include the rivets installed in the substructure of the assembly.....only the Skins.....WOW! That is a great example of how well the RV-14 is built.
After eight hours of work today, we only have about 45 minutes to go tomorrow to finally complete the Horizontal. We started the day by continuing to rivet the skins to the flanges of the Front Spar. Next, starting from the Front Spar Assembly, the Skins were riveted to the HS-904 and HS-1004 Inspar Ribs (only up to the HS-00914 Stringers). This will prevent any wrinkles in the Skins as the Horizontal is completed. The next step was to rivet the Skins to the Stringers and then to the remainder of the Inspar Ribs.
The picture below shows all the rivets listed above installed in the upper right side of the Horizontal. The clecos are holding the Rear Spar and the Skins together and are the next pieces to get riveted together.
This picture shows the Rear Spar Assembly riveted to the Horizontal. The inner HS-1004 Inspar Ribs used AN470AD4-6 rivets, the Outer HS-904 Inspar Ribs used AN470AD4-4 rivets, and the remainder of the Ribs used LP4-3 pop rivets.
Finally, we riveted the right bottom skin of the Horizontal to the Rear Spar using AN426AD3-4 rivets. Below is a picture of the progress.....
Tomorrow, we will rivet the three remaining sections of the Skins to the Rear Spar and complete the Horizontal Stabilizer.