This page allows you to follow the construction progress of the empennage sub-kit.
Empennage kit includes rudder, vertical stabilizer, horizontal stabilizer, elevators, trim tab and tail cone.
I will try to add comments for each picture and video explaining why this was taken.
Well folks, here it is; my first mistake. You can see the rolled skin that was shipped to me from Van's. That's because when I was dimpling my original skin the pneumatic squeezer missed the per-punched hole and I made a new one next to it. It was cheap enough to buy a new skin instead of trying to repair. Lesson learned, even though you can do most of the project alone, if you can get help, get it. Put your ego aside. If someone was holding the skin i wouldn't mess it up.
First two pics are showing testing the fit and riveting the horizontal stabilizer's skins. One side was easy, the second side already gets really tight an hard to do. Especially at the time I didn't have the Tungsten bucking bars. I do suggest everyone to get this from the beginning. Check out my Tools page for more info.
Also, simultaneously starting with the elevator assembly (third picture)
I made a mistake. I used wrong nut plates for trim tab assembly door. Ended up drilling it out with my brother and dad and installing the new ones. It wasn't easy since i had the skin attached already. But we did it.
First two pictures above are showing the rivets that hold a plastic wire guides. Understandably soft rivets used here not to pull through the plastic but I was surprised when the stem of the rivet pulled right out. I tried so many that I ran out. End up calling Van's support. they said it is fine and expected. There are no forces and it's just to hold the plastic in place. I ordered more rivets and finished it up. the last picture is another rivet that pulls the stem right out. this rivet is used as a static port for pitot-static system. Kind of weird but I guess it works. See below for the placement.
Pitot-static system hose assembly. I don't particularly like the solution of the ports. They used rivets. If I knew they had another option selling at Van's I would probably go with that. But now I think it is too late. This will work as well I guess.
It took me a while to figure out what's going on, then it hit me. In the very first section of the empennage construction I made a mistake that didn't reveal itself until the very last section of the construction. I flash-riveted from the wrong side. Ended up ordering another plate from Van's as the original one had enlarged holes by the time I drilled out the rivets.
This really turned out to be a very bad day. I noticed that one of the rivets were not squeezed good enough so decided to give another squeeze. Bad idea. It cracked the flange. I called Van's, sent them the pictures and they suggested to put a doubler. See the next set of pictures below for the solution.
The suggestion from Van's support team was to add a doubler with the same material which I made from another unused rib. The work area was very tight and hard to get the rivet gun or a squeezer there. I finally was able to rivet one AN 470 universal head rivet and for the second one I used a pop rivet. this is the farthest from the crack and would only serve to keep the doubler from swiveling. I don't think there are too much forces on this rivet.
Started to work on fairings and fairing attachments. The first two pictures above are where we add the tail light plate to fairing. Also tapped to screw the light when the time comes. In the third picture we add the nut plates to the assembly so we can attach fairings.