RV-7 Horizontal Stab Details

	9 July 2002	Here's the first day's efforts. The rear horizontal spar went together fairly well. Not too many problems and everything seems to have lined up as advertised. This is one of the newer tail kits and thus, no fixtures. I took a look at the old pre-plans and they do differ from the the latest set of -7 plans. I did get the new rudder as well.
	9 July 2002	The center bearing after the first day. The next session I drilled the pilot holes of the opposite bearing mount. I'm currently waiting until I reach critical mass for the first priming session.
	10 July 2002	Here goes the front horizontal spar. Again, not too many problems. At least that's what I thought. A nasty hot spell in the SF Bay Area had really put a damper on afternoon activities. I'm not sure what the final temp was but the garage was REALLY hot! I also made the first trip to the local auto paint supply store for the first batch of PPG DP48LF primer. Looks like I'm going with the tried and true epoxy primer.
	10 July 2002	This is the first minor oops. For some strange reason, I marked out the bend as 5" from the C/L, instead of 5 3/16". Whoops. I had finished out the relief holes then figured out there was a slight problem. I think this goes back to the valuable lesson of RTFM. Better to get this lesson now rather than latter. By the way, the four holes marked "c/s" actually get dimpled on the 702, but the 710 and 714 get the countersink.
	10 July 2002	Front face of the front spar drilled and fitted.
	11 July 2002	The skeleton comes together. The HS405 ribs are being fitted here. The plan is to cleco the skins to the frame and check alignment of the bearing brackets just to ensure that this is straight. So far everything lines up great.
	11July 2002	Oops again. Dummy me. I cut a bit too much for the notches around the HS404 ribs (left and right). I suppose I could have just put two rivets in there anyway, but it just didn't look good. Heck for $16, Van's will even send me two new ones.
	12 July 2002	The Horizontal stab fitting is making progress! At this point, We've fitted the entire HS with the exception of the HS404 ribs which are now on order from Van's. There are a couple more holes to drill and then enlarge all the skin holes.
	12 July 2002	I wanted to check the alignment on the new tail kits. Basically, I ran some dental floss the length of the HS and through each bearing mount bracket. Every hole was centered from tip to tip. I really don't think I could make it this straight even with a jig.
	28 July 2002	After a week at Oshkosh, I'm back to building after finally receiving the HS404s that were reordered. Finally got those fitted.
	29 July 2002	Finished up some minor catch-up items on the stab and now it's ready to come back apart for the debur, dimple and prime.
	1 Aug 2002	Finally finished de-burring, and dimpling all the HS parts. Learned a couple lessons: first, the ol' soldering iron trick works great to remove selected portions of the blue plastic on the skins. Second lesson; never ever, ever, ever attempt to pick up hot soldering iron by the hot end! Although fixtures and jigs aren't necessary, the two cradles are very handy to hold parts while work is accomplished.
	4 Aug 2002	Primed all the HS parts and now it's time to start the assembly. I'm using PPG DP48LF for primer right now. It's going to take some time to get the mixture right as I don't think I have the amount of reducer correct yet. It also took exactly one rivet to determine that a search and successful bid for a pneumatic squeezer is in order. The -3s aren't a problem, but the -4's take some doing!
	5 Aug 2002	Rear spar goes together for last time.
	6 Aug 2002	Here's the left side pretty much complete except for the rear spar.
	7 Aug 2002	Right side of the HS almost done. Rear spar is cleco'd in for the time. All that's left to do is squeeze the main spar rivets and the inboard ribs for the right side.
	9 Aug 2002	Except for the fiberglass tips, the HS is complete! Only 42.5 hours start to finish.
	4 Dec 2002	HS Complete with exception of final paint and some minor filling.