5 May 2024 - 5 hours

Started this session by cleaning and scrubbing the VS rear spar, rear spar doubler, and VS tip rib. When those dried, I shot some primer on them. That stuff dries really quickly, especially since it was a beautiful warm day (about 65 and sunny), so I was able to go from cleaning, to priming to ready to rivet in less than an hour! Here we are all clecoed up and ready to set some rivets!


And just like that, the rear spar is done!



Here's the flush rivets on the bottom of the front of the VS rear spar. They need to be flush for when this part mounts to the last bulkhead of the fuselage.


I moved on to riveting the VS ribs to the front spar. This was all very straight forward.


Next, I clecoed on the skin and then zipped through the front spar and center rib rivets. There is a little more space inside the VS than the HS and there are much fewer rivets to set so this didn't take too long. These are also the best looking rivets I've done with the gun and bucking bar yet!


Here is inside the lower bay of the VS after riveting the spar and middle rib.


Here is inside the upper bay.


I still had time to work so I buttoned up the top and bottom ribs as well as the rear spar, and just like that, the vertical stabilizer is done!