In my first tech counselor visit, quite a while ago, they identified that the rear spar caps in the vertical stabilizer were not properly deburred (not surprising, it was the first part I ever made):
Vertical stabilizer's poor deburring from 2014
After much hesitation, I decided to redo that rear spar and its attached parts, so I had a lot of rivets to remove:
Vertical stabilizer skin rivets to remove
For the 1/8" rivets that attached it to the ribs, I had to remove them through the shop head, but that turned out to work well with exactly the same technique - drill to some depth, break the head off, and then the actual rivet hole is evident to finish drilling:
Vertical stabilizer attachment to middle inspar rib being removed
After just a few minutes (easier than I expected), I had the whole thing off:
Old rear spar removed from the vertical stabilizer
I got the new parts from Van's, and got to work like it was 2014 again:
New rear spar being drilled
Since I already have the completed tailcone, I skipped ahead and final-drilled the VS rear spar into the tailcone now, so I could countersink the bottom holes and prime the whole thing:
Rear spar attached to the tailcone
Rear spar match-drilled and bolted onto the tailcone
Like before, I added a nutplate for the grounding strap, slightly closer to the brackets this time:
Grounding strap nutplate
After primer, I riveted everything back together:
Rear spar riveted together
Vertical stabilizer completely riveted again
The holes that attach to the middle inspar rib got cherry rivets (CR3213-4-2) instead:
Cherry rivets attaching the middle inspar rib to the rear spar
Overall, the results were a lot better than before (who knew, 5 years of building experience makes a difference :) ):
New (left) and old (right) rear spars
Time lapse:
Total vertical stabilizer rivets: 350 (I didn't count repeat rivets again, so no diff from last time) Total vertical stabilizer time: 76.1h
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