I forgot this entry from a couple of days ago.  Finished up the rivets at the bottom of the rudder.  Needed a way to rivet the ones close to the cable attach piece because I really couldn't get the rivet gun flat against the rivets to properly pull them.

Bent the rivet mandrel slightly.

Made this piece so that the rivet is pulled flat.  The drilled hole is angled to match the angled surface on top.

The bent rivet mandrel fits through the hole.  Now the surface against the skin is flat and the rivet gun is flat against the angle piece I made.

Perfecto!

1 hr. checking rudder to VS attachment and unpacking the wing kit.

And it fits and swings!  I built a jig to hold the VS in place.

The kits are very well organized for easy identification of parts for each assembly.

Lots of rivets!

Built a 3rd workbench, so I now have a 16 foot work surface for the wings!

I just added the ability to be alerted by email if I put up a new post.  Just subscribe right over there where it says "Follow by Email".  You'll only get an email when I put up a new post and no other time.

1 hr prepping and riveting the final small skin onto the top of the rudder.

3 hrs finalizing the stiffener rib install and riveting the rudder.  Almost done with the tail kit!

Had to drill the holes for the stiffener rib (they sent me the ribs for the 2, and the 4 has a stiffener that the 2 doesn't have).  Since I didn't drill the holes exactly where they should be had to redrill a little, so I made the middle rivet a bigger one.

All cleco'ed up and ready to rivet!

My new favorite tool!  A chucking reamer (sizes #30 and #20) to fine-tune the holes which are too tight.  Quicker and easier than the hand reamer I was using.

Nearly done!  Still have to do the small skin for the top of the rudder and decide what I'll do for now regarding the strobe.  I don't have the strobe kit, so I may just leave that for later.

1 hr. fitting the skins on the rudder.  The holes in the two ribs that hold the stiffener are missing, so much of the time was getting that lined up so I can drill those holes.

View inside the rudder with one side cleco'ed.

Positioning the stiffener so can drill the holes in the ribs to hold it. 

Making sure it all fits.  There's a twist on the trailing edge, so when I do the final fit I'll want to try and finagle it to remove the twist.  Should be interesting to see how much play there is... 

 Cleco'ing the two skins together on the "leading edge" of the rudder.

Wing kit arrived today!!

4 hrs. finishing the vertical stabilizer.

Cleco'ed up and ready to go!

Left these 2 cleco's in because rivets will not be inserted in the 3rd and 6th holes from the edge.  There will be rivnuts here.

Here's a video I made showing how to install a rivnut (click the little gear thing and change the resolution to 720p for best viewing):


Rivnuts installed.

And it's done!

2hr. working on the VS and skins.  Cleaned and primed the VS and rudder skins and then drilled out the holes for the VOR coax.

Cable connected!

Strobe wire pulled through.

 The strobe wire all the way through.

Drilled out the small hole already in the rib to fit the grommet for the VOR coax.

Was going to drill a hole for the coax in the 2nd rib down, but decided that there wasn't much material on that rib, so I'd just use grommet edging instead.

The coax all the way through!

1 hr. deburring the skins of the VS and rudder and making the cable for the VOR.

Here's the crimping tool I got from SteinAir (with the appropriate sized jaws)

And the finished cable!  I posted a video a couple of weeks ago about how to make this.  If you look for the tag "Avionics" you'll find it.

1.5 hr finishing the pulling off of the film on the rudder and VS.