28 Nov 2022 - 2.1 hours
Unlike some other planes, the RV-7 has a pleasing sweep to the horizontal stabilizer so the tips are wider then the root. The rear spar is straight all the way across so the sweep comes from bending the front spar.I did lots of prep work for this with the creation of the relief notches a few days ago. Now, to execute the bend, which is 6°, I clamped the spar to the workbench with a wood block right on the bend line.
It turns out 6° isn't much and is pretty easy to overshoot... Fortunately, aluminium is rather bendy and overshooting to 10° or so doesn't permanently deform the part; just bend it back. I made a 6° template out of a Cheerios box to check my accuracy:
With the bend done on both left and right front spars, I turned my attention to shaping the ends of the front spar reinforcement angles. These two parts are beefy so it takes some elbow grease to round the corners. I did a rough cut on the bandsaw, which cuts this aluminium like butter, and then did the final shaping with files.
