Rear Fuselage time...

The first step in Section 10 is to separate and prepare the stiffeners.

Below - all the F-1486's....

plus some F-1037's and a couple of F-1473A's...

On page 10-04 there's a little work involved in getting the right angles on

the F-1411D Horizontal Stabiliser Attach Bar Support Angle

I got it to here, and then had cut some weird angles to remove the excess and then file the flat edge between the angles.

Below is F-14113-L & R prior to separation. After cutting this once, I would do it differently next time by separating the two halves first and cut the angles later.

What I actually did was measured the centre point as per below and then cut the angles as you see them. I decided to draw the lines inside the angle as this is the orientation it's going to sit on the band saw bench and I need to be able to see the lines.

However, for those two lines to intersect at the back edge of the angle, those two lines needed to be offset by at least another 1.5mm. It was much more fidgety, but I got there in the end. I also ordered another piece as I have a feeling it's not going to be exactly as I want it when the two rudder stops are fitted to the fuselage. Watch this space.

This part was a little scary as I was drilling into a perfectly good Vertical Stabiliser Spar to match drill the systems hole.

As I couldn't get it near the drill press, I hope I got holes as perpendicular as I needed to.

Riveting Elevators

Time to rivet the elevator rear spars.

Here I've already riveted a few and the next couple of images show how...

Luckily, Vans sell a special bucking bar specifically designed to split the gap in the trailing edge without stretching things and enabling the rear spar rivets to be set with relative ease. These were some of the easiest rivets to set as the angle on the bucking bar is designed to be parallel with the spar when setup as below leveraging off the edge of the bench...

Here are some shots of the internal rear spar rivets and some of the nicely set skin rivets. The bare aluminium is for the trailing edge wedges that need to be installed next. However, this whole section needs to be inspected by a CASA rep prior to the wedges going in as the trailing edge is riveted at the same time as the wedges are pro-sealed in place - obviously can't be inspected after that.

Below are some images of the elevator ribs riveted into place ready for the rear spar.

Trailing edge clecoed - need to arrange inspection on this now.

Riveting Elevator Skins

Getting to a point where the elevators can be closed up soon - another part coming to completion!!

Below is the upper skin of the left elevator showing the piano hinge of the elevator trim tab

Left elevator almost constructed while the right elevator skeleton above it in comparison.

Below is the special tool - RV-14 trailing edge bucking bar I purchased from (I think) Vans. Highly recommended as it makes bucking the trailing edge rivets much easier.

When the elevator is setup correctly just back from the edge of the work bench, these angles create a parallel surface to set the rivets aligned with the under side of the rear spar.

Elevator should be away from the edge of the workbench while the Bucking Bar gains leverage from the edge of the bench...

Partially through setting the rear spar skin rivets on the top left elevator...

...and viola!! I only messed up one of these rivets when the bucking bar slipped off the rivet head - only did that once.

This was an interesting one - the rear spar rivets set perfectly but when setting the elevator rib rivets (the vertical line of rivets in the photo below), I could not get the manufactured head to seat flush into the skin. these rivets were being set using back-riveter on the plate recessed into my workbench.

I figured out later this seemed to be due to the surface of the workbench being slightly higher(<2mm) than the back-riveting plate. This slight height difference in addition to the rear spar and skin not wanting to deflect down to the level of the back-riveting plate caused the 2 rib rivets closest to the spar to not want to sit flush with the skin when set as can be seen here...

So after two attempts with the back-rivet technique, I thought I'd try the pneumatic squeezer - surely this should work perfectly as it always did previously.

Nope. Put a nice little dimple in the skin.

I'm still not sure how it did that, but it looks worse in the photo than it was in real life and with a couple of taps from behind, flattened off the skin again. I had the Vans web page up and was ready to purchase another skin - luckily not required.

Here are the ribs all (mostly) back-riveted into place.

Riveting the E-1410 Trim Access Reinforcement Doubler and the E-1411 Doubler Brace.

Reinforcement Doubler and Doubler Brace nut-plates installed... 

And the rivets as well. There's something satisfying about the flush rivets all set inside the polished aluminium skin....

Now to rivet the other side of the rear spars prior to gluing the trailing edge wedges into place and then the trailing edge wedge. Before I can do this though, I need to have them inspected prior to closing up the elevators and the trim tab.

Almost done.