After several months of primarily wiring in the fuselage (all the Avionics work!), we’re back to metal work on the F1 Rocket project. The horizontal stab is now all clecoed together for the first time—the skins fit the frame, and it is all nice and rigidly held in the assembly fixture. To the uninitiated, it looks like it’ll be done soon, doesn’t it? But “The Process” still has a long way to go.
There are two hundred holes in each surface—that’s four surfaces total (port and starboard, top and bottom). Right now there is a cleco in approximately every other hole, so 400 clecos being used. The next step is to take ALL of them out and do a little massaging of the leading edges near the tips to get them to naturally lay a bit flatter on the ribs – the clecos are doing too much work right now. Once we’ve squeezed them a bit, we have to put them on and try the fit again. That’s 400 clecos to assure a good fit. Then, if I’m not happy, they come off again for a little more squeezing and then yup—back on for another fit. That’s 400 clecos each time!
Almost done then? Well sure, except that everything comes apart for deburring and dimpling/countersinking. Most of the holes can be dimpled, but a few are in spots where countersinking might necessary but we’ll have to look at each hole individually to see where the special cases might apply. Then it all goes back together for another fit check which means… 400—oh you get it by now!
Once all that is done, we can begin to plan exactly the sequence for riveting the structure together so that we don’t paint ourselves into a corner (so to speak). Very easy to do when using solid rivets on a skinny structure. But that’s yet to come… for now, let me go grab my cleco pliers!
