Van's RV-9A in Aurora

The Big Picture

The Big Picture
Flying! 8/28/2011

Sunday, February 3, 2008

HS Complete

Well almost. Discovered that more clecoes needed to clamp and match drill the center elevator hinge assembly. And the torque wrench.

The HS assembly is 10' long.

Today set the last 50 HS skin/rear spar rivets.

It was fun to show off the HS to the neighbors and all. It weighs 24 pounds, and that includes the two jigs. After a break (doing yard work, ughh), started on the VS assembly.

There's a bunch of 1/8 rivets in the VS rear spar. It took a while to set them. They're so much effort to set I started dislocating my shoulder. Had to use cheaters to reduce the amount of force required.

But got the rear spar done and started on riveting the front spar and ribs.

Rear VS spar riveted together. The tape saved me from having to drill out several rivets!

Nice looking rivets, but they exacted a price.


2.6 hours and 142 rivets.