Stjohn's RV-7

4 hours.
After cleaning up the shop (I always like to make a fresh mess), I tore into the HS rear spar.. If you recall, last time, we got the HS ribs and forward spar riveted in.. But something about the aft middle rib I didn’t like, so I drilled off the rivets and went to work on why there were gaps between the flange and the skin. Turns out, after some serious mangling to try to get it in there properly, the rib didn’t sit well in the dimples anymore. This time around I tried it a little differently, that is, not clecoing the forward flange of the rib to the forward spar. Well, dang. Still wasn’t perfect, and I was still dealing with the ding I put in the skin last time around, but it was damn close enough. No actual gaps between riveted flange and skin, and the ding actually popped back into shape.. somewhat.. But the thing that was warping the rib enough to make it not line up to the dimples in the skin was the fact that it was being twisted when the rib-to-spar clecos were in.. Not much, but enough to mess it up. But after riveting the rib to the skin, it didn’t take much to get the rib-to-spar holes lined up (read: drill) and the blind rivets went in without any trouble. Still, I had to use NAS oops rivets on that rib, top and bottom. But it turned out ok, so I was ready to move on to the final step: closing the HS by installing the aft spar, which by now has had all the hinge brackets and everything installed properly and securely. Yeah, I don’t want my elevators coming off in mid flight, so you can bet I paid close attention to that.
There are a buttload of rivets on that aft spar/HS skin setup. I did all of them. Except one that I missed and it’s staring at me right now with its baleful empty eye. I have pictures, but I still can’t upload them because my server is bollocks at the moment. SFTP and SCP are both down. But the HS looks pretty darn cool with all the rivets (except that one I missed) in, and all the blue stuff taken off! And the rigidity of the structure is absolutely amazing.. I LOVE monocoque construction!
Next time I update this, I hope to have pictures.