Finished drilling the HS skin

The HS skins are ready for deburring and priming.

More HS skin

Measured and started drilling the other side.

HS skin drilled

One skin drilled on. The other one is ready for drilling.

Left elevator stiffeners

Drilled on the stiffeners on the upper surface. Had a visit from the controller yesterday. Everything was OK, and the books signed.

Drilling the rudder

Marked all lines and holes and drilled the rudder skin to the skeleton. Also made the strips to fasten the fiberglass trimming and details.

Finished drilling the VS skin

Finished drilling the skin. When I took the skin off again, everything looked OK, no holes in the wrong place. Need to drill the two fore-most holes at the tip, but I have to take the skeleton off the jig first.

Drilling the VS skin

Finished marking on the jig and the ruler. Transfered the markings to the skin and started drilling.

Markings for drilling

Continued marking lines and holes and flutings for the drilling process. Drilling holes in the skin is next.

Finished drilling HS skins, damage claim settled

All the holes in the HS skins are drilled. Only trimming, deburring, dimpling/countersinking, priming and riveting left :-)

Got a mail this evening that the damage claim is settled. The parts that where damaged during shipping, will be replaced with new parts from Van's.

Skins HS drilling

Almost finished drilling both skins on HS. The second one was much faster than the first one. I imagined the skins would buckle and stretch and lots of difficulties, but they went on "just like that". I used these clamping clecos on both LE ends, then three large wooden clamps + some additional clamps.

First holes in HS skin

Finally, after lots of measurements and gathering of enough guts, the first holes in the HS skin was drilled. The manual say I should start at the intersection HS-408/rear spar, but I contacted Van's and got the information that it is better to clamp as good as possible and start in the middle and spread out from there.

I will continue on the other side and drill/cleco alternately from each side. It probably doesn't matter, but somehow it feels that this will be better in terms of getting everything straight.