Today I’m working on making Rocket mods to strengthen the horizontal stabilizer and I started with making a doubler template.
Horizontal Stab – Rear Spar Doubler Template
First I put the horizontal stabilizer rear spars together, attached with the 0.125″ stiffeners which are part of the original RV-8 tail components. For the template I started with a piece of Lexan and roughly cut it to size to overlay the area of the doubler, which will be on the forward side of the rear spar. In the picture below you can see that the template extends out past where the mid-span hinges attach. I extended the template so that I can hold it down with clecos. The end of the doubler is located at the outer half of the mid-span hinge. See the blue line just to the left of the clecos.
Here is a closer picture of the details described above. The four holes drilled in the template are the attach points for the mid-span hinges. Moving slightly further inboard you will see another series of blue lines. These are to indicate where the doubler will be cut out in the middle for lightening.
This next picture is the other end of the lightening hole near the rear spar centerline. There will be one of these lightening holes on either side of the doubler.
In this next picture you can see the lightening hole marking in their entirety.
Horizontal Stab – Front Spar Doubler
For the front spar, since it’s not drilled to have additional stiffeners or doublers I used the stiffeners from the rear spar to provide me with rivet spacing and edge distance for the front spar doubler template. This front doubler will be attached to the rear side of the forward spar. It’s designed to be a two pronged fork on either end with a large lightening hole in the center.
Please comment, I love to hear from my readers. Thanks again for coming along for this ride, you make my work worthwhile.
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