Q: "Why don't you go to bed like a normal human being?"
A: "Because I am de-burring"

We got the top of the horizontal stabilizer skin drilled and deburred tonight. Corrosion protection and the cut for the control lines will finish that up.

Getting the skin tight over the stabilizer was a major pain. Using the rachet straps worked, BUT it was an impossible operation by myself. The piece of wood that was used to protect the overhang would slip and needed to be duct taped into position. The tightening of the straps would cause the stabilizer to move forward. The skin had to be tugged on to get it flush with the front of the spars.

Drilling the skin was also problematic. I had a slight splay out for the two full ribs that attach to both the front and rear spar. While I could measure and feel where the spars were, I still needed to drill some "pilot" holes to double check my measurements, release the skin, adjust the rivet lines, re-tighten and repeat.

Currently I am confused about when the whole thing gets riveted.

Reading through the rest of the tail section I found that the stabilizer doesn't get riveted until after the elevator is done. That is a bit of a buzz kill since I really want to consider the horizontal stabilizer "done" even though I know some more mounting bracketry needs to be placed on it for the mating of the elevator.

Saturday will be spent at the big Arlington fly-in and Sunday will be spent starting the elevator.

Project Status:
Horizontal Stabilizer: 27.5 hours spent, 3 pieces borked ( 3h, 2h, 2h, 2h, .5h, 1.5h, 3.5h, 1.5h, 5, 4.5, 2h )
Rudder Done, minus horn : ~16 hours spent, ( ~8h, ~8h )
Workshop Done: ~8 hours