A Day of Learning

According to the FAA (FAR Part 21.191) experimental amateur built certificates are issued for "education and recreation". Well, the education part of that intent hit me hard today. I tried to educate myself as best as possible before beginning this project, but I have discovered the learning will not stop any time soon.

I spent the better part of today attempting to dimple the skeleton and skins of the horizontal stabilizer. The skeleton was fairly routine. I used my pneumatic squeezer and dimple dies exclusively. The skins is where I was taught a lesson or two. The holes around the edges were quickly dimpled again with the pneumatic squeezer. The holes for the forward spar were done fairly easily with the trusty C-frame dimpler. The place I took a few lumps was trying to get the last few dimples for the middle nose rib.

The C-frame dimpler could reach all but the last one or two holes for the nose rib. I made it work on one of the forward most holes, but with a nice little "smiley" on the outside of the skin. I was none to happy.

After struggling with these last few holes for nearly an hour I discovered, or better yet, re-discovered, my "tight fit dimpling fixture" from Cleaveland Aircraft Tools. This simple tool made quick work of these forward most dimples.

After today, I really appreciate and understand when builders talk about how much easier or quicker their second plane is to build. So many lessons to learn so few parts.