July 8 2023

Riveted the stabilizer skin. User ratcheted belts to close the skin. Much more convenient than to push by hand.

Almost at the end I dropped a drill bit inside the stabilizer through the rivet hole. The stabilizer is fully closed the there are no holes I could get the drill bit. I did not want to leave it there forever and rattle. On the other hand I did not want to remove a lot of rivets to get it out.

I used a wooden wedge to make a small gap between the skin and…

July 05 2023

Made L angles to attach the end ribs to the spars. The drawing is incorrect. It says to make 56 and 60 mm L angles. They are too short and do not fit the predrilled holes.

The assembly manual is right. The length of the L angles should be 75 mm. I used a long drill bit to drill through the spars. My electric drill does not fit the space.

Attention. I clecoed the ribs incorrectly. On the pictures the rib goes over the spar. The ribs should go between the…

Been working on avionics for the past few months. Wiring isn't pretty as I'd like but functionally its solid. I'll be ready to rivet the dash once my new throttle cable arrives. The one I was going to use was a "cut to length" and I just wasn't comfortable with the set up on a push throttle. Got my prop from the Ukraine. Now waiting for extended hub, bolts, and lugs. I'll have to move the plane to a temporary store facility for final assembly and inspection. Will there be any issues with it…

July 03 2023

Added the skin on the bottom side of the stabilizer. No surprises. Just a lot of clecos and rivets.…

July 3 2023

Back to the stabilizer.

As the assembly instruction says before putting the stabilizer skin the stabilizer skeleton should be fixed on the workbench

and leveled. I used two pieces of scrap wood to fix the skeleton and a number of wedges to level it.…

July 03 2023

Dale an EAA counselor came to check the current work state.

I showed him the stabilizer skeleton and the vertical fin. Dale found the work quality acceptable.

We discussed the ways of corrosion protection, importance to build light.

Dale discouraged me to use iPad as the only integrated instrument. It is not robust enough and can overheat easily.

The non-portable devices are much better. Also he warned me against usging the ADSB-out…

June 16 2023

Cut L angles using the new band saw.

Using a wrapping paper to open the elevator skin to get a hand free access to the L angles.

Using a clamp to fix the L angle position.

Using 12 inches drill bit to make the L angle holes.…

June 15 2023

Postponed working on the stabilizer waiting for the EAA counselor inspection.
Started working on the elevator.

June 14 2023

Finished the stabilizer skeleton up to putting the skin.
Prepared parts for the elevator.

June 13 2023

Continued working on the stabilizer skeleton. 

Partially riveted the back spar.

Removing scratches from the doubler.…

June 12 2023

Clecoed front and back spars.

Made the doubler. Scratched the doubler. Will remove the scratches later.…

June 10 2023

Put the skin on the vertical fin.

Checked the rudder and fin have the correct gap.…

June 09 2023

Assembled the fin skeleton.

Covered the fin skeleton and the fin skin with cortec.

Started putting the skin on the vertical fin.…

June 04 2023

Clecoed, deburred and covered with cortec the vertical fin skeleton.…

June 03 2023

I put the rudder skin the the skeleton. Basically I just repeated the job done on the Zenith rudder workshop.…

June 02 2023

Deburred the rudder. Speed deburring tool is very convenient. Much better than a drill bit.

Covered the aluminum touching areas with Cortec diluted by distilled water 4:1.

Tested the Milwaukee electric riveter. The Zenith heads from the pneumatic rivet gun look to work fine. The heads from the hand riveter do not match.

I will post the pictures of the Milwaukee electric riveter later.…

May 31 2023

Started building the rudder. Initial assembly. Deburring.

Using a carb cleaning spray to unglue the labels. It works in two steps. First spray, wait 10 seconds, unglue the label. Second spray, wipe out the rest of the glue. Change the rags often They are getting dirty quickly.

Made a simple tool to drive stubborn rivets in. It is a wooden dowel. I drilled the hole for the rivet stem slightly off the center. Turned out it is more convenient than using…

hi all,

      dont have my cruzer plans handy. doing the SB upgrade on my horiz stab.  need to order some hinge from spruce.

can someone tell me the hinge size used to attach the elev to horiz stab 

on the 750 Cruzer? when folded out flat what is the width and thickness?

thanks in advance!

michael.

May 27 2023

I used the most of the kit package lumber to build the workbench. The rest of it I used to build an envelope for large flat parts like skins. I put the envelope along the garage wall.