VS Is taking shape

Last night and today I made some good progress. I finished both the left and right VS spar caps and final-drilled them to the rear spar and the rear spar doubler. Then I countersank the appropriate holes in the doubler so I can finish those with flush rivets as called for by the plans.

Then I deburred the remaining parts of the VS and clecoed it all together. I made sure to remove plenty of material from the front of the ribs that touch the inside of the leading edge of the VS. I heard from other builders that these ribs will damage the skin I not trimmed back. I’m very pleased with how it fits after the trimming. I clecoed the skin on and everything fits great.

The next step is to final-drill the holes in the skin. I’m suck here until I can fix or replace my air drill. Yesterday it started spewing black oil out of the exhaust andbit got everywhere. What a mess! I’ll probably end up buying a Sioux drill because I’ve heard those are the best. Also, I found a guy down the street with a sign that says “on-call welding”. I’m thinking that instead of buying a DRDT-2 dimpler for 400 bucks, I can buy the parts and have him make me one for under 200. We shall see how that works out…

Working on VS

At this point, any progress is good progress. So I figured I’d post a picture of my progress tonight. I drilled all the holes in the left and right rear spar caps and I got halfway done drilling one of the flanges.

More tools…

It’s been a little frustrating lately. I been stuck needing some tools, namely small scotchbrite wheels and drill bits. I finally ordered them from Avery tonight so hopefully I’ll be back building soon. Also, I need to send back my alligator squeezer because it uses hard-to-find 1/4″-shank sets instead of the more common 3/16″-shank sets. Scott from ToolsEZ said last week he’d be willing to swap it out for me. He has been great to work with so far so hopefully we can get this switched out ok. The new squeezer will be a conventional style rather than the alligator style. I think this will work better. The conventional squeezer is held perpendicular to the workpiece, which I feel is a more natural arrangement. When the new squeezer gets here, then I will need some rivet sets. Man there are a lot of tools needed to build this airplane!