And the adventure begins…
Test fit of horizontal stabilizer. The elevator hinges were a bit too tight, but polishing the bushings a tad helped getting all together nicely. The electric trim was also assembled. The cotter pins are missing here since we need to disassemble this one more time. The elevator moves nicely with a little 9V block.
Shaping the stabilizer tips is straight forward. I opted to use the foam that was included in the kit. After sanding it (taking care not to scratch the weldment), I applied a thin layer of Hysol. The end result is surprisingly strong! Let’s see if it can withstand the heat when attaching the fabric.
Finished the elevator by adding rib stiffeners to all free-standing ribs. The local hardware store indeed sold a nice 2.5mm ply labeled ‘For aircraft use’! Two layers of PolyFiber Epoxy varnish added for the trips to the Caribbean.
Since the ribs don’t have cap strips, the long ribs show quite a bit of flex. Adding rib-stiffeners to those ribs will prevent them from bowing. The stiffeners are glued to the side of the ribs with a bit of Hysol. (Note the re-purposed laundry clips to hold them in place for ~24 hours. I guess I have to use the dryer from now on…)
The ribs come CNC pre-cut from spruce (?) plywood. They are intentionally left slightly too large. Trimming them is easy. A small hand-held rotary tool (aka. Dremel tool) will be your friend for these days!
Started reaming the horizontal stabilizer. Of course, all the hinges are very close to the tubes, which makes it quite tricky to hold the reamer. The grinder got busy on the reamer end, so that the vice grip has something to hold onto. A little piece of scrap wood helped to protect the weldment. All took a bit longer than I expected…