Progress on the horizontal stab has been slowed a few times due to my poor attention to detail. The spar and rib construction was a breeze. Sanding the foam ribs took patience but it is possible. I tried laying up all of the flanges at once and most of them turn out bad. I had to replace a foam rib and I broke the leading edge in two places. No problem. I just micro pasted it back in place.
Then I installed the center skin panel. I was having trouble getting the leading edge of the panel to clamp down in the center. Once I had it to my liking, I let the panel dry. Since the trailing edge wasn't being a problem, I didn't check it after I had the leading edge fixed and the panel turned out to be almost completely above the spar. Steve suggested that I put a patch on the inside to cover the area that I would have to sand almost down to bare fiberglass. The repair turned out better than I expected.
I haven't had time to lay up anymore 3/8" LAF sheets for panels so I've just moved on with sanding the correct profile and micro pasting where required. I had been careless in the initial leading edge sanding and I took too much off in a 10" span. My fix was to micro paste a piece of 1/4" LAF onto the leading edge and then sand it to the correct profile. The dorsal fairings would've covered it up later on in the construction but knowing I could've fixed it and produced a better looking part would've driven me nuts.
I have only wasted about 5 hours with my mistakes but I'd rather make them now on the "small" wing than later on when I'm making the "big" wings. I know that I'm only jinxing myself but I'm estimating that I'll be done around 10 Septemeber 2003, which will mean that it only took about six weeks to build. More to come so check back in a few weeks.
My condolences go out to Jon Herd and family. To me, all Vision builders are part of my extended family.
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