assembly – PH-MNX

Horizontal Stabilizer Assembly Final

ph-mnx — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:12:23 +0000

Today I finished the first part of the plane, the horizontal stabilizer. All rivet are checked and double checked, because I already forgot one to “set” and fortunately I found this during the check.

Most of my video’s are time-lapse, because uploading 2000+ hours of video is rather silly. However to give you a “real-time” view, I uploaded this 5 minute video.
The first minute of this video, I’m finding out the exact setting of the pneumatic squeezer for these rivets. The setting differs per rivet and per part (thickness).
Once set correctly, you can use the squeezer to rivet fast and precise. The set rivets are then checked with a rivet gauge to determine if the are up to (MIL’s) spec.
The clamps (silver cylinders) that temporarily attach the parts are called Cleco’s, which is a registered trademark, but used as a product name.

Again I screwed up with two rivets, so they had to be drilled out and reset. Here’s one of them.

I’m very satisfied with the result of the horizontal stabilizer.

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets: 260/2

Video

Horizontal Stabilizer Assembly Skin

ph-mnx — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 20:27:10 +0000

Continuing on attaching the right horizontal stabilizer to the front spar.

Really pleased with the results, here a look into the right horizontal stabilizer at the mid-point. The aft and front rib are riveted together with blind rivets (better known by their brand name Pop-rivet).

Time: 2 Hours, Rivets: 68

Video

Horizontal Stabilizer Assembly Front

ph-mnx — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 18:52:27 +0000

Together with my dad I worked on the final assembly of the horizontal stabilizer, starting with the front spar. We accidentally riveted 1 hole that will be used in the future to secure the horizontal stabilizer to the fuselage, so we had to drill that one out again.

Now attach the front spar with the ribs to the left skin.

Riveting the skin to the front spar.

Repeat for the right skin.

With the bucking bar in the front of the horizontal stabilizer, we pushed too hard, which resulted in a minor dent.

It’s so small, I’ll fix that later, when the horizontal stabilizer assembly is finished.

We are not finished yet, the right skin and the rear spar still need to be attached.

Time: 7 Hours, Rivets: 175/1

Video

Horizontal Stabilizer Fitting

ph-mnx — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 20:20:39 +0000

The assembly with the rear spar was a great fit and we could start with fitting the skin an the right horizontal stabilizer.

Aligning the pre-drilled center rib holes with the ones of the skin, required a special tool, the broom stick. We used this one also during the curving of the RV Training project.

The end result is very rewarding, however I should take more intermediate photo’s.

Today was a productive day together with my Dad and we made huge progress.

Time: 7 Hours