It?s been exactly 2 months since beginning my build. I?ve spent all that time building, prepping, and priming all the pieces for the VS, rudder, HS, and elevators. It was very nice to finally start putting pieces together and see a result of all that effort.
I?m pretty happy with my work as a beginner. I see why people talk about the first piece you build, and always walk to the back end of RVs when they look at them
I definitely learned a lot in this structure and gained confidence in riveting ? especially bucking, which, to me, really is the more difficult and critical part of riveting. By the end of the piece I was able to feel how I was effecting the shop head with the bar, stop early if I wasn?t remaining square, and make the necessary correction. Initially I was almost solely focused on the gun end ? was worried about it walking all over - but quickly realized I have to focus more on the bucking end. As a testament to that, I have a few spots where I slipped with the bar and made some slight outward dents in the skin.
I initially had some second thoughts as a new builder bucking all of these alone (some very awkward angles/reaches), but I read an old post here by Rick Gray about help vs. going it alone. He made some excellent points about the solo route. I?m very glad I did it all solo ? I learned a ton. I?ve bucked a bunch of practice rivets, but it is difficult to replicate some of the angles/blind bucking that you do when riveting the airplane. Actually, I thought the dings would bother me more than they did. Do I want them, no, but I was glad to get them out of the way ? like the first ding in a new vehicle. I?ve had other builders tell me how they miss the metal work when they?re at the 90% done, 90% to go phase, so a few years from now, I may redo the entire VS ? very few parts to prep. This one could serve as a nice conversation piece on the wall of my man cave. We?ll see.
I?m very happy with the way the C-frame dimples turned out. Now that I think about it, I mentioned reading a post by Rick Gray ? my C-frame was purchased second hand from Rick:
At the end of the day, I had a vertical stabilizer
I?m pretty happy with my work as a beginner. I see why people talk about the first piece you build, and always walk to the back end of RVs when they look at them
I definitely learned a lot in this structure and gained confidence in riveting ? especially bucking, which, to me, really is the more difficult and critical part of riveting. By the end of the piece I was able to feel how I was effecting the shop head with the bar, stop early if I wasn?t remaining square, and make the necessary correction. Initially I was almost solely focused on the gun end ? was worried about it walking all over - but quickly realized I have to focus more on the bucking end. As a testament to that, I have a few spots where I slipped with the bar and made some slight outward dents in the skin. I initially had some second thoughts as a new builder bucking all of these alone (some very awkward angles/reaches), but I read an old post here by Rick Gray about help vs. going it alone. He made some excellent points about the solo route. I?m very glad I did it all solo ? I learned a ton. I?ve bucked a bunch of practice rivets, but it is difficult to replicate some of the angles/blind bucking that you do when riveting the airplane. Actually, I thought the dings would bother me more than they did. Do I want them, no, but I was glad to get them out of the way ? like the first ding in a new vehicle. I?ve had other builders tell me how they miss the metal work when they?re at the 90% done, 90% to go phase, so a few years from now, I may redo the entire VS ? very few parts to prep. This one could serve as a nice conversation piece on the wall of my man cave. We?ll see.
I?m very happy with the way the C-frame dimples turned out. Now that I think about it, I mentioned reading a post by Rick Gray ? my C-frame was purchased second hand from Rick:
At the end of the day, I had a vertical stabilizer
