Empennage - Horizontal Stabilizer

2003-08-06 - Fixed major screw-up. (1.5 Hrs).

I dimpled the front HS spar that Dufus forgot to do on Sunday, and reriveted the front spar to the 708/707 ribs and the 706 rib. No picture, you've seen this before.

It's a real pain to insert the pop-rivets into the ribs inside the HS, so here's a picture of the special rivet insertion tool that I made.

At the other end of this tool, I made a special "nose rib front rivet dimpling tool." I needed to use this to dimple the front rivet on the 707 nose ribs because the C-Frame that I bought from Isham's would not work. It has about 2" of steel sticking out the front of the base, which prevents it from getting up close to the front of the skins.

Previously, I said I could not recommend this C-Frame, for this reason, even though it is $20 less than most other C-Frames. However, a few days later, I saw an article in Kitplanes magazine that showed a few builders dimpling the HS skins. They had the male dimple in the base of the C-Frame, and the female dimple in the end of the rod that is driven. This would have solved my problem, but I just didn't consider it. Sometimes, you just need to look from a different angle.

Anyway, my special tool does not work very good because it is made out of wood, and it does not have the mass needed when hammering the dimple. But, it does work.