September 25, 2006 ...  After riveting the Horizontal Stabilizer forward and main spar assemblies, I pre-assembled the remaining stabilizer parts with Clecos, lined and squared everything up, and temporarily set the skins in place and marked the (factory) pre-drilled rivet holes to see if everything is going to line up properly. All marks landed right down the center of the spar channels and ribs with the exception of the horizontal stabilizer root ribs. I must have located the root rib brackets about 1 or 2 degrees off. The marks angle very slightly outboard consistantly on each side (front to back, green arrow to yellow arrow). To compensate for the slight angle, I remade the ribs using the same type of material used to fabricate the forward and rear spar channels. That will give me a wider margin of space to land those rivets. The modification will have no effect on final installation of the horizontal stabilizer, and it only added 1.9 ounces of weight to the back end. I am very happy with the finished horizontal stabilizer frame.

 

September 23, 2006 ...  When it came to riveting the horizontal stabilizer main (rear) spar, I found that the rivet holes on part of the spar are spaced too close to the wall of the channel and cannot be reached with the nose of the pneumatic riveter or the hand riveter. So I created a tool that enabled me to pull the rivets with the hand riveter, without bending  the rivet mandrel or channel wall. I cut-off a large bolt, from the top of the bolt head downward 3/8 of an inch thick. I then cleaned everything up with a file and drilled a 3/32 inch hole in the center. I filed one side flat so that it would clear the channel wall when the spacer was slipped over the mandrel of the rivet.