Empennage: Elevators. Left elevator foam ribs sealed in.

Foam ribs sealed in.  My first time working with sealant without making a mess!  The approach was to slip the ribs in, apply sealant to the skins and spar, then slide the ribs over.  Much easier than shoving the ribs in after sealant was applied.

Trim tab rib.  Upper surface sealant slathered on.  Lower surface still dry.

Elevator rib.  Sealant applied to skins and spar.  I went ahead and applied sealant for the trailing edge too since I had already mixed up a batch.  Will make things look nicer and possibly mitigate corrosion?

Parts weighted and clamped for sealant curing (we're building the saw horses for the start of the aft empennage).

Empennage: Vertical stabilizer. Complete.

Always nice to be able to say "complete".  Riveting was straight-forward.

The fact that I riveted the rear spar prior to placing the skin was, as I figured, not an issue for accessing the rivets along the middle rib.

Tada!

EAA Technical Counselor visit

I had a visit from my tech counselor today.  Wanted to consult with him regarding the issue with my horizontal stabilizer aft spar not lining up with the skins and ribs.  He thought that applying pressure to various parts of the stab might get the holes to line up and if the aft rib flanges didn't line up, to just drill them out.  He said this was a problem he'd seen many times on pre-punched kits.

The outcome and a detailed description of the issue can be found here.

Empennage: Rudder. Stiffeners, ribs, spar and horn riveted.

I decided to redo my rudder due to the trailing edge.  Here is the post outlining the new rudder.

To get the stiffeners riveted on the rudder, you do a sort of "reverse peel", starting at the bottom and working your way to the top, pulling each aft stiffener rivet.  Then you pull the forward pair of stiffener rivets.  With the stiffeners locked together, it's a more solid feeling rudder than other models.

A few shots of how the pull rivets look.  Aft end.

Forward end.

Be careful to avoid this unfortunate problem.  Sand this to fit around around the horn's protrusion so it seats nicely before riveting.

At first we tried to buck the horn brace rivets with a tiny bucking bar stuffed inside.  After messing up the first rivet and drilling it out, thinking it was time for pop rivets, it donned on me that we could squeeze them with my longeron yoke.  Duh.  No problem.

Not shown in the above picture is the bottom, forward-most AN426AD3-4 rivet that holds the skin to the horn brace (in the above image, it would be the lowest cleco'd hole).  We could not fully squeeze it with any of the yokes I have.  Didn't seem feasible to buck it.  We left it about halfway squeezed.  I'm okay with leaving it as-is, but I'll put it on my squawk list so I can remember to keep it in my mind should I later find a way to do it or meet someone who has.

Here the rudder sits waiting for the trailing edge to be riveted.

Empennage: Horizontal stabilizer. Ribs and front spar riveted.

The horizontal stabilizer is at the point where only the rear spar needs to be attached.  That won't happen yet.  There is a gross misalignment that I will elaborate on more when the fix is determined.  Until then, here's where things are at.  Update:  See here for misalignment details.

Nose ribs went in without a hitch.

Looks clean inside with the ribs and stringers.

Full stab without aft spar riveted in.